The Butterfly Effect
by Euphoria Ranger
Summary: A split second decision changes history, causing a cascade effect that changes the course of time and space. A Naruto world where one person's choice causes a massive distortion in the world. Pairings to come. CHAPTER 31 RELEASED! The jinchūriki battle begins quickly goes south as a power play is made in the village, and Hidden Sound's plan begins to unfold!
1. (Intro Arc 1) Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Warning: **I assume many of you have read _Naruto_ in some capacity, so you are aware of the general background of the story, but if you have not, I highly suggest reading the plot synopsis on the _Naruto_ Wikipedia page. Enjoy!

**(Introductory Arc) Chapter 1 – Meet the Uzumakis! A New Saga Begins!**

For the most part, a normal day in the Hidden Leaf Village for the young and upcoming ninja hopefuls starts with an early wake up call and breakfast with the family before heading to class for the day. Many families partake in various early morning routines, which may include some light training or a quick chat with relatives over a warm meal. However, there are those certain few who are not inherently inclined to wake up at a reasonable time to start these routine activities of the day, which leads us to the beginning of our tale, the home of the Fourth Hokage.

As the leader of a large ninja village, one might expect that he would be the owner of a decently sized mansion, and while this is true to an extent, Minato Namikaze did not purchase his current home with fame and prestige in mind. Rather, he commissioned the construction of nice home that was accommodating to his small family of three. That's not to say it was a small structure; there was plenty of room for all everyone, with spacious living spaces, a comforting environment, and great bedrooms for the sleep deprived.

Within a dark corner of one of those bedrooms, a seventeen-year old blond boy was fast asleep, no doubt dreaming of his one true love – ramen. He was only partially covered by his bed sheets, with a leg partially hanging off the bed, but that didn't seem to matter to the youth, as evidenced by the sloppy smile on his dozing face. His room was a cluttered mess, evident by the large pile of dirty clothes overflowing from a hamper in the closet and a garbage can that was spilling over with empty ramen cups. The lone clean area in the room was near the bed and window. A cherished family photo stood in a frame on a nightstand by a simple lamp, while a few potted plants rested on the windowsill next to the young man's desk, with various scrolls scattered over it. Barely visible under the documents was a laptop computer, and a cell phone was charging on the windowsill.

As the youth released a loud, rattling snore, the door to his room had slowly opened, and a woman stalked into the room, her face contorting in disgust as she kicked aside some rancid underwear in her path. She had long red hair that extended down to her lower back, an apron fastened over a simple green dress, and smoky blue eyes that narrowed as she surveyed the scene in front of her. As she looked down on the still form of her slumbering son and then at the flashing display of the silenced alarm clock, her eyebrow began twitching in annoyance. "Get up, Naruto," she said somewhat loudly but firmly. The young man in question just ignored the order and rolled over, immersing himself in the much more comfortable covers while murmuring unintelligible words in his sleep. Unfortunately, his attempt to hide didn't work to his advantage. The next request was a couple of decibels louder as his mother repeated her request in an eruption of anger, "GET UP NARUTO!"

The disembodied voice of Uzumaki Naruto floated out from under the pillows, "I don't wanna, Mom…I've got plenty of time to get to the academy…" His voice faded off as he burrowed even deeper into his covers.

Uzumaki Kushina didn't look convinced, and her eyebrow continued to twitch when her son didn't emerge from under the covers, and a soft snoring once again commenced. A moment later, though, she began to smirk as an idea popped into her head. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and closed her eyes in concentration. Glowing chains of chakra shot out of the ceiling, wrapped around her son's arms, and hoisted him out of the bed. The source of the Kongō Fūsa (Adamantine Sealing Chains) was the middle of the woman's back, and she looked smug as her son hung before her.

Clad in only an old t-shirt and boxers, he did not look too happy to be trussed up in his own bedroom. She ignored the evil look he was shooting her way. "If you think you can get a shower, dressed, eat breakfast, and to the academy in 15 minutes," she said pointedly, "you're a hell of a lot better than I am at getting ready. Sasuke was already up and gone 10 minutes ago, you know."

Naruto glared at her through sleep-encrusted eyes and wrenched his arms free of the chains. As they faded from view, the young man fell back down onto his bed and scratched his face. "That's because Sasuke's an overachiever, Mom, and 15 minutes is so much time," he muttered, "You just take so much time because you're a girl…" He finally managed to get out of bed and slowly began to search his room for some clean clothes to wear.

Stifling a chuckle, his mother said, "Yeah, well this _girl_ is going to give you 5 minutes to get in the kitchen for breakfast before she comes back here and drags you out herself." Naruto just waved a hand at her as he walked by, newly found clean underwear in hand, and his mom ruffled his hair before going back into the kitchen.

The blond teen slogged into the kitchen five minutes later, looking slightly more awake than he did earlier, and sat down next to his father at the table. Namikaze Minato glanced at his son before chuckling to himself and getting back to the morning paper as Kushina laid a plate of eggs and toast in front of the heir to the Hokage.

As usual, the young man was dressed in his usual orange and black sweatshirt and slacks, with the usual weapons holsters and standard sandals. Never one to pass up food, Naruto quickly dug into the meal, and his father commented, "You don't need to eat like a heathen, son. It's not going to do you any good if you choke to death."

Shooting his father an incredulous look, the blond shook his head vehemently. "Yeah, but now I'm getting excited because when I get back, I'm gonna be a genin!" he said in between bites.

The Fourth Hokage chuckled and put the paper down to take a drink of his morning coffee. "Oh really now? You know, I heard that if certain young men did well on their graduation exam, they might get to start learning a new technique tonight."

As he shared a look of knowing with his wife, Naruto stopped stuffing his face and looked up at his father in cautious excitement. "Really?" he asked slowly. When his father nodded, the excited young blond exclaimed, "Yes!" He drank the last of his orange juice in one big gulp and darted to the door, only pausing to place his dishes next to the sink.

"Naruto, you might need to use a tail to get there in time. Your mother wasn't kidding about you sleeping in too long!" Minato shouted after his son, having pushed his chair back into the hallway. He heard a rapidly fading confirmation and shook his head in amused disbelief. He looked at his wife, who had come over with plates of food for the two of them, and said, "He becomes more and more like you every day."

She laid a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of him before smacking his arm lightly and sitting down across from him. "You have no room to talk whatsoever," she retorted, "He looks more and more like you every day." He shrugged, a wide grin on his face, and started to dig into his food with a hungry fervor, not unlike his son's. Kushina rolled her eyes and started eating at a slower pace, though not without a smile on her own face.

…xXx…

Outside, Naruto leapt over the wall surrounding his home and was soon surrounded by a reddish-orange cloak of pure, bubbling chakra. His eyes darkened to red and narrowed into vertical slits, while the whiskers on his face grew more pronounced, and his fingernails lengthened into claws. Two ears and a tail of chakra also grew out of the cloak. Inside his head, he heard a deep voice rumble, "**So today they're going to let you become a genin. That may be the dumbest thing this village could do with the way you act most of the time.**"

'Shut up, you stupid fox,' Naruto thought, slightly irritated, as he ran on all fours through the streets of Konoha, 'You have no room to talk about bad behavior.'

As he ran to the academy, he focused his attention to the mental conversation with his host. The landscape of his mind was that of a large field surrounded by rolling hills. Naruto appeared on the head of the giant, nine tailed crimson fox that inhabited those 'lands,' and the fox growled in annoyance. "**Watch it, boy. You're just lucky I like you so much,**" it muttered ominously.

Knowing that the tough guy act that the demon put on was mostly for show, Naruto just laughed in response, but he quickly shut up when the Kyūbi added, "**Do you really think that trick you and your father concocted is really going to fool the teachers at that piddly academy of yours?**"

Now it was Naruto's turn to roll his eyes, though he couldn't hide the look of worry on his face. 'Of course it is, idiot,' he snapped, 'Iruka-sensei knows full well that because of you,' and here, Naruto kicked Kurama's head a couple of times, inciting a long growl of anger, 'I don't have the fine chakra control to make normal clones, but Shadow Clones are a different story. Besides, they probably just want to see the clones, not the technique used to make them. If anything, they should be happy that I've mastered such a high level clone technique.'

The giant fox snorted at its container's confidence. "**Yeah, sure, we'll go with that,**" the Kyūbi muttered, a few rattling laughs leaving his large throat as Naruto returned to concentrating on reaching the academy in time.

The blond youth skidded onto the academy grounds a minute later, and the red chakra cloak covering him quickly dissipated. He darted into the school and dashed down the hallway until he reached his classroom. Looking around and not seeing his teacher anywhere, he breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed in a pile at the front of the room, earning some snickers from the other teens present.

A dark haired boy seated a few rows up smirked at the sight before him, ignoring the girls surrounding him. "Nice of you to join us, Naruto. Did Auntie Kushina finally manage to wake you up?" he said with a wide grin on his face.

The blond cracked open an eye glared at him with it and snapped, "Shut up, Sasuke." The smirk on the face of the Uchiha teen grew larger, and a content look settled on his face.

A girl with long, platinum blonde hair sitting very close to Sasuke snorted as she observed Naruto below. "Honestly, Naruto, even Shikamaru beat you to class. You're seriously behind the times if you can't get here before him." Yamanaka Ino paused momentarily to send a dirty look to a ponytailed male sitting in the row in front of her whose head was buried in his arms and muttered, "Though…that doesn't seem to have kept him awake very long." A pencil whizzing by her head as she turned to say something to Sasuke caused her to become visibly enraged. She whipped her head back to glare at Nara Shikamaru, who still appeared to be sleeping but was hiding a very small smirk with his arms.

Next to him was a slightly chubby boy who shook his head incredulously at the interaction between the two of them. Akimichi Chōji was well used to the bickering that occurred between those two and tended to tune it out, usually with a bag of his favorite barbeque chips. Therefore, he was content to softly smile as he saw his best friend send a pencil flying in the blink of an eye towards his other childhood friend and to pull out a few more chips from the bag in his hand.

By this time, Naruto had dragged himself up and wandered up to the row behind Sasuke. He threw himself into a seat directly behind his best friend and rested his chin on the desk while looking out over the room with a dreary expression on his face. He remained like this for a few seconds before he heard the light tapping of claws on the floor next to him, followed by the unique sensation of a dog tongue licking his cheek softly. He turned and grinned at the seventy pound white puppy that was inspecting him closely from the floor. The dog was on two legs as he gave the blond youth a look that dared him not to pet his head. As he scratched the puppy's head, he pulled himself up and said, "Hey Kiba, I think you lost something."

Sitting in the back row of the classroom was another young man, wearing a wooly jacket and whose face was adorned by twin red marks. He smirked and accepted the puppy that Naruto held out for him, only groaning slightly from the weight of the animal. "Nah, he was just on sleepy head patrol. He's just as anxious as the rest of us to get through the graduation exam," Inuzuka Kiba said as he flipped over the young pup Akamaru and began scratching his belly. Turning to the youth sitting next to him, he said, "We could all take a lesson from Shino here. He's got relaxed down to an art."

Adorned with a thick cloak and sunglasses even though it wasn't that cold and he was indoors, the shoulders of Aburame Shino twitched in the slightest hint of a shrug, and he said, "Relaxed has nothing to do with it, Kiba. I'm sure we'll all do fine on the exam. Why? We wouldn't have gotten this far if Iruka-sensei didn't believe we were ready for it."

The dog trainer chuckled and shook his head slightly, "Man, I don't think I'll ever get used to how you talk, but I like the way you think," he replied, and Akamaru added a bark in the affirmative as well. In the row in front of Kiba sat another female youth, this one with dark hair that was close to the color of purple in the right light as well as pale eyes. Hyūga Hinata did not say a thing but merely giggled at the interaction of the boys in the class.

Any further exchange was cut off as the door opened again, and an older ponytailed man walked in, clipboard in hand. Looking over the room and finding everyone to be present, he nodded in satisfaction. "Alright, class! I hope all of you are ready for the graduation exam," Umino Iruka said loudly, "Today, you will be asked to produce three clones using the Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Technique)…"

A snort came from the first row, following by Shikamaru saying in a muffled voice, "This is so troublesome."

Iruka coughed and glared at the boy, whose head was still buried in his arms but was now at least awake. "Shikamaru, if you would please not interrupt me, I'd appreciate it," the teacher snapped.

That got the young Nara to finally sit up and address his teacher. "Iruka-sensei, you've taught us for five years and made us do that troublesome Bunshin no Jutsu like, five hundred times. In addition, we all have abilities and skills that we have learned through our various classes that are much more difficult to master than that E-class technique. Shouldn't you know if we can do the technique by now? And wouldn't it be more beneficial to test us with a more challenging exam?" he countered, "I mean, let's be real here. Naruto has the chakra level of an Uzumaki along with a giant pool of near unlimited energy called a tailed beast in his gut, and he can't even muster up one normal looking clone, but he can do a bunch of difficult techniques. This test makes no sense." Naruto piped up in indignation when Shikamaru began to bash his abilities but quieted down when his better aspects were revealed.

Iruka opened his mouth to respond, but knowing he could go on forever and not win the argument, he decided the best course of action would be to continue the exam explanation. Coughing slightly, he stated, "As I was saying, when I call your name, please go next door to begin your exam. First up…Aburame Shino." The named youth quietly arose and followed the exam proctor out of the room, only pausing to glare at Kiba through his sunglasses for the 'good luck' clap on the back he received.

The room slowly emptied over the next thirty minutes, and finally, the son of the Hokage was one of the few people left in the room, leaving him in an increasing state of anxiousness and hyperactivity. When he heard a shout of "Uzumaki Naruto!" from the next room over, he practically shot out of his seat and dashed to the door. When he entered the next room, he saw that Iruka was seated at a table near the opposite wall, along with two other teachers. One was a man named Mizuki, who gave Naruto a slight smile that he returned happily. The other was Hyūga Hizashi, the brother of the head of the Hyūga clan, and his Byakugan was currently activated. The latter also smiled and nodded to the young Uzumaki, who grinned back widely.

Iruka finished writing something down and looked up at the blond boy, who was practically hopping up and down in excitement. "Alright, Naruto, please use the Bunshin no Jutsu to create three passable clones."

The genin prospect immediately brought his hands up into a handseal, with two fingers on each hand crossed, an action that was not lost with the three proctors. "Bunshin no Jutsu!" he exclaimed. With a small "poof!" three perfect clones appeared around him.

Iruka looked over to Hizashi, who examined the three clones for about thirty seconds using his Byakugan before nodding his approval. He then looked to Mizuki who gave an amused smirk before waving his hand. The scarred teacher gave Naruto a knowing look but then said, "Excellent job, Naruto. You pass!" as he smiled approvingly. All four Narutos jumped up and down in happiness and started shouting happily.

"Yeah, we did it!"

"Suck it Sasuke!"

"Hokage seat here we come!"

"Who da man? We da man!"

Sitting on the table in front of the proctors were a few forehead protectors sporting the Hidden Leaf Village's insignia that had not been claimed by recent examinees. Iruka picked one of them up and approached the celebrating blondes. After a few seconds of watching some strange celebration dance, he finally had enough and shouted, "Naruto!" in an attempt to get the original's attention.

They all stopped in mid dance and turned to face the young teacher. "Yeah, Iruka-sensei?" all four of them said in unison.

"Naruto, cut it out. Which one of you is the real one?" Iruka asked exasperatedly.

All four copies of the blond frowned slightly, and three of them disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving only the original. "You take all of the fun out of things, Iruka-sensei…" he muttered grumpily.

"It's my job," he retorted, "Now do you want your headband or not?" He held out the headband, and Naruto eagerly took it. Within no time, it was securely fastened behind his head. "Now get out of here," the scarred man continued in a joking manner, "Believe it or not, you aren't my only priority today, and I imagine your parents are dying to find out if you passed." Naruto grinned cheekily and all but ran out of the classroom, not noticing the calculating look sent at his back.

When he reached the entrance area of the academy, there were a few people waiting for him. Sasuke was chatting with Hyūga Neji, the elder of the two Hyūga genin. As he approached, both broke out into light laughter at something the young Uchiha had said. His mother was talking with the head of the Hyūga clan, Hyūga Hiashi, who had come to pick up his daughter Hinata, who also passed the graduation exam based on the forehead protector secured around her neck.

Kushina smiled widely when she saw her son running up and opened her arms to allow him to hug her tightly. "I see you passed!" she exclaimed.

"You better believe I did!" he shouted back happily. Pretending to have discovered a great secret, he motioned at Sasuke's headband and added in a loud whisper, "Sasuke didn't pass, Mom, but they felt sorry for him so they let him have a souvenir headband."

Sasuke scowled and retorted with, "At least I didn't pass because I was too ugly and they wanted me out of the room because their watches were quitting on them." Both boys glared at each other for a few seconds before their scowls melted into grins, and they gave each other a high-five.

"Okay, that's enough, boys. Let's get home before you two start fighting again," Kushina said strongly, "Besides, I left your lunch going, and I don't want it to get ruined because you two held me up." Both boys' eyes lit up at the prospect of food, and the red haired woman could only roll her eyes as both started on a mad dash back to the Uzumaki residence. 'I swear, those boys will be the death of me,' she thought as she began to follow them at a more casual pace, pausing only briefly to bid farewell to the Hyūga family.

…xXx…

Meanwhile, the remaining students had finished their graduation exams, and the proctors had convened in the main conference room of the Hidden Leaf Village's administrative building, minus Mizuki who had an errand to run. Minato joined Iruka and Hyūga Hizashi in sitting around the overly large table. Iruka opened a folder and handed a piece of paper to each of the people in the room. "Here you are, Yondaime-sama. The list of academy graduates and the new class of genin for this year." Hizashi was already examining a folder similar to the one Iruka had just handed Minato.

The blond Hokage examined the list of graduates, and a large grin broke out on his face as he saw both Naruto and Sasuke's names among those who graduated. "This looks like a good batch of new genin. Are there any major surprises among those who graduated or who did not graduate?" he asked the proctors.

Both of them shook their heads, and Hizashi added, "Not at all, Lord Hokage. We might need to move a few of the graduates around here and there, but overall, the proposed teams that we compiled last night should work out well."

Minato nodded with satisfaction and laid the list on the table in front of him. "Excellent. Iruka, Hizashi, if you could, make any adjustments you see fit with the teams, gather up the jōnin instructors, and give them their team assignments by the end of the day." Both teachers nodded and took their leave after gathering up their things. The blond Hokage picked up his own documents and walked upstairs to his office, immaculately organized compared to the chaos that resulted from the 'cleaning' done by his wife and son. After a few moments, he seemed satisfied with the placement of the files, so he pulled out a tri-pronged kunai from a pouch and was gone in a golden flash.

A few minutes later, the door to the meeting space slammed open, and Mizuki stumbled in, starting to apologize but stopping once he saw that no one was in the room. Instead of growing scared at the thought of punishment for missing a rather important meeting, the silver haired chūnin sneered and quietly shut the door to the conference room. A moment later, the door opened, and Uzumaki Naruto emerged. Carefully looking around, he saw nothing out of place, and he headed for the stairs that led to the lower, more secure levels of the main building of Konohagakure.

…xXx…

45 minutes later, two young teens and the head of the house rested comfortably in the living room of the Uzumaki household, their stomachs bursting at the seams from all of the food they had eaten. Minato was propped up in a recliner, looking rather comfortable. Sasuke and Naruto didn't even get that far and were sprawled out on the shag carpet. Meanwhile, Kushina was in the kitchen, quietly shaking her head at the sheer amount of food that the men had inhaled for lunch and the subsequent amount of dishes that were left over. "They could at least have offered to help me with these," she muttered as she picked up a random piece of china and began to work.

"Now that was a good lunch," Minato breathed carefully. Content grunts from the two boys, slightly muffled by the carpet, indicated their similar approval.

A previous conversation came to the forefront of Naruto's mind, so with some difficulty he rolled over onto his stomach to ask, "Hey Dad, when are you going to give us our graduation present? You said you'd teach us something new if we graduated." While he didn't bother moving from his comfortable position on the floor and kept his eyes shut, Sasuke's ears were also trained on the elder blond.

Minato opened his mouth to respond, but he was interrupted by a new arrival. An ANBU agent clad in a cat mask and a tan coat suddenly teleported into the living room, nearly stepping on Naruto. As the younger boy started squawking angrily, the masked man hurriedly knelt down in front of the village leader and exclaimed, "Lord Hokage! We tried to stop him, honestly we did, but ten minutes ago, your son absconded with the Scroll of Forbidden Techniques! We need to find him immediately. Do you know where he might be?"

Evidently almost being stepped on didn't qualify as being recognized as well, as Naruto quickly leapt to his feet, got into the face of the ANBU agent, and indignantly spat, "Excuse me?!" Sasuke merely rolled his eyes, while Minato's expression was a mix of surprise and embarrassment at his son's actions.

When she heard all of the commotion, Kushina had poked her head into the room, and with a puzzled expression, she said, "Jaguar…while I fully believe my son would do something like that…"

"Hey!"

"There's no way he could have taken that scroll. We've been with him for the past hour."

The ANBU agent codenamed Jaguar had recoiled slightly at Naruto's exclamation, and with the addition of the redheaded woman's comment, it finally seemed to hit him that Naruto wasn't the true culprit. Even with the feline mask adorning his face, everyone in the room could tell he at least had the decency to be embarrassed. "Yes…well, I understand that now, Lady Uzumaki, but there was someone in the scroll library taking that scroll, and my patrol identified him as Master Naruto." He turned to Minato, who was sitting in his recliner, and said, "Just as a matter of protocol, I need to search his room and the home. Lord Fourth, you are welcome to join me." Minato nodded tersely, and the two disappeared up the staircase. Kushina returned to the kitchen, absently waving a sudsy dish around and sending small soap bubbles flying everywhere.

They were not gone long, as Minato and the ANBU agent returned a minute later with the scroll in hand. "Well, apparently the impostor decided to plant this in Naruto's room while we were either eating or digesting," Minato said grimly. He turned to the ANBU and asked, "Please tell me you managed to get a hit in on him before he got away?"

Everyone in the room heard the agent chuckle, and Naruto knew that under the mask, he was smirking as he said, "Yeah, I did. He tried to use that Oirike no Jutsu (Sexy Technique) that your son invented awhile back, but I like to think that I have more willpower than that…"

Naruto and Sasuke shared a skeptical look as they remembered some of the more perverted men of the village who had fallen victim to Naruto's favorite pranking technique, and Naruto added dubiously, "Sure you do, pervert."

Jaguar coughed and continued, "…so when he dispersed that, I launched a good kick at his head that he tried to block with his wrist. Needless to say I heard a nice crack before he dropped a smoke bomb and escaped."

The Fourth Hokage sighed but nodded in approval. "Well that at least gives us a place to start. I wouldn't worry about it too much, since we have the scroll back, but assign one of your teams to the hospital in case our boy tries to get treatment. I still want him brought in for questioning." Jaguar nodded curtly before disappearing silently. Minato slumped back down into his chair, the forbidden scroll having been propped up against the table next to him.

After a few seconds, Minato hopped to his feet and looked at the two young men in the room with him, whom were now both sitting up. The look on his face indicated that he had just come to a great revelation, and both boys looked back at him in confusion. Hoisting the scroll into his hands, he said, "Are you ready for your graduation present?" Naruto's face broke out into a huge grin, and the young Uchiha, while trying to retain a face of neutrality, also had a small grin on his face. "Technically I shouldn't be doing this, but I know Sasuke is dying to learn the Shadow Clone Technique, and Naruto can help with that while he upgrades up to the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique. If you two want, as soon as I find Mizuki and get his report on the graduation exam, we can go and practice until dinner."

The Hokage's son was quite literally shaking with excitement, and even Sasuke had a grin of pleasant surprise on his face until everything that his father had said had processed. "Wait, Naruto knows how to make Shadow Clones?" he asked, a slight frown appearing on his face.

Minato deferred to his son, who now had a peeved expression on his face. "How else did you think I passed the graduation exam?" Naruto exclaimed indignantly, "That dumb fox's chakra won't let me make any normal clones, so I had to fake it. They just said I needed to make three clones, so I did it. Just not exactly what they wanted."

In his head, he heard a low growl of, "**Watch it, idiot. I'll show you what it means for me to mess around with chakra.**" His complete ignorance of it only served to make the fox angrier, giving its container a good amount of amusement.

Naruto's housemate shook his head in amazement. "Only you would think to do that," he said ruefully.

"Don't let him claim all the credit, Sasuke. I might have helped him a little bit," Minato added, "Now, let's get going to Mizuki's place. Hopefully this won't take too long. I was planning on having a short day today." With the scroll in his hands, he walked to the front door and opened it, allowing his two sons to walk out before he shouted back into the house, "Kushina, we'll be back in time for dinner, alright!" Hearing an affirmative response, he followed his sons out the door.

While Minato and his wife did not have any desire to have a giant mansion for fear of losing track of a young and mischievous Naruto within, they did have a decent amount of money saved up, so the home that they had purchased was in one of the newer housing developments in the village. Ninja whose income was lower usually opted for the cheaper apartment style housing that was scattered around the village.

That is where the three men of the Uzumaki household were now standing. Minato pulled out a small pocketbook and flipped to a certain page, confirming the location of Mizuki's place. He turned to the two boys and said, "You two can stay down here. I'll be back in a second…"

He was unable to complete that line of thought, as an explosion ripped through the upper levels of the building. A figure shot out of the smoke and down onto the street. The ANBU agent from earlier landed on the street opposite of the figure from the new arrivals to the scene.

"What's going on here, Jaguar?" Minato shouted across the street.

The cat-masked ANBU turned and saw the village leader and waved frantically, just as the mysterious person began to emerge from the crater. "Lord Hokage! I found the intruder from earlier! I received a report from one of my patrols of someone with a broken arm clearing out their living space, so when I went to investigate I discovered it was…"

"Mizuki-sensei!" Naruto exclaimed in shock, interrupting the ANBU agent before he could finish. All four males observed as the silver haired man, armed with two large Fūma shuriken in a back holster and favoring his arm, emerged from the crater. Blood trickled down his head as an audible growl escaped from his lips and he examined his surroundings. His broken wrist was somewhat stabilized by a makeshift splint, and he was now wearing his bandana-style forehead protector.

"Damn, this is not what I needed," the chūnin instructor growled. Turning to the source of the one who had called out his name, his eyes widened as he saw the Fourth Hokage standing along with Sasuke and Naruto, and he started to carefully weave signs in order to not aggravate his arm. "I need to act fast!"

Acting quickly when he saw that, Jaguar shouted, "Hold it!" as he finished a quick string of handseals, ending with "Raiton: Shichū Shibari (Lightning Style: Four Pillars Binding)!" Because of his impaired arm, Mizuki was unable to finish his own technique in time and was trapped by four rock pillars that shot out of the ground around him. Electricity sparked to life between them, forming an electric cage around the criminal. The feline-masked ANBU agent then quickly reversed his signs into a different string, exclaiming, "Yaekōin (Multilayered Restraining Seal)!" simultaneously slamming his left palm into the ground. An array of seal marks jumped across the ground and wrapped around the lightning cell, effectively sealing off Mizuki from the outside world.

Unfortunately, the criminal was undeterred. As he finished the string of signs, he pulled one of the shuriken off of his back, bit his tongue, and wiped some of his blood on the weapon. Immediately, he was soon holding a chakra-empowered blade.

Minato's eyes widened when he saw this, and he thought, 'Mizuki shouldn't be capable of a technique like that!' Out loud, he shouted urgently, "Jaguar! Get my kunai in the air!" The ANBU agent nodded, and as he pulled out one of Minato's special three-pronged kunai, the Hokage began to form a swirling sphere of lightning based chakra in his hand.

"Naruto…is that…" Sasuke asked, a look of shock and amazement crossing his normally stoic face.

"Yeah…my dad's Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere) technique…" Naruto responded, "He only pulls that out in special situations…"

Mizuki heaved the glowing shuriken at the 'ceiling' of the cage, and it sliced through the tendrils of lightning like they were nothing. He leaped up and grabbed the shuriken, only to be hit in the shoulder of his good arm with a kunai. He had no time to react as Minato warped up, the kunai in hand, and shoved the sphere into Mizuki's chest with a cry of "Raiton: Rasengan (Lightning Style: Rasengan)!" The sphere erupted into a swirling cacophony of lightning, but Mizuki didn't appear to be phased by it. Instead, his body began to melt into sludge and shot onto the surprised Hokage, wrapping around him and restricting all movements. He fell to the ground hard and stayed there, unable to move as the mud hardened into a hard cocoon.

"Lord Hokage!" Jaguar cried out. He made an attempt to jump towards his trapped leader, but a kick to the back sent him to the ground, and he was trapped by two chakra-fueled kunai that impaled his palms.

"That's payback for my arm, you bastard," Mizuki muttered darkly, having been hidden amongst some shrubbery since the explosion. He walked away from the downed ANBU after spitting on his face and slowly approached the trapped Hokage, who was unsuccessfully trying to free himself from his dirty restraints.

"Why, Mizuki?" Minato exclaimed urgently, "What happened to make you want to steal the scroll and betray the village?"

The silver haired chūnin continued to slowly walk over, not saying a word, until he was standing right over the Hokage. He looked down at the trapped man for a moment before he pulled out another kunai, wiped some blood on it, and infused enough chakra to double the length of the blade. "Because I got a better offer elsewhere," he muttered ominously he reared his good arm back and prepared to ram the knife into the Hokage's chest.

"Not so fast!" a voice behind him shouted angrily. Mizuki spun around and saw Naruto and Sasuke flying through the air towards him, both armed with their own kunai and both looking ticked off.

Momentarily caught off guard, the traitor recovered and shouted with a sneer, "Sen'eijashu (Striking Shadow Snakes)!" If possible, Minato's eyes widened even more when he heard the name of that technique, but he couldn't do anything as snakes shot out of Mizuki's sleeves and trapped the two surprised teens back to back in a tight coil. Naruto was lucky to get a shot off with his kunai, but it missed the rogue and bounced off of one of his father's restrictive coating. Other than a small dent in the cocoon that quickly refilled, it didn't appear to cause much damage.

"Damn pests…" Mizuki growled, ignoring Naruto's exclamations of his hatred of snakes. He turned back to the trapped Hokage, a sinister grin spreading across his face. "Now, let's try this again." His good arm swung the kunai downwards one more, but he was once again interrupted, this time by the arrival of another to the scene.

"Hakke Kūshō (Eight Trigrams Empty Palm)!" Hyūga Hiashi shouted, as a blast of pure chakra shot out of his outstretched palm and hit Mizuki right in the chest. As the traitor crashed through the wall of a nearby building, the Byakugan user knelt down and started to channel chakra into the mud cocoon surrounding the Hokage. Before long, he was able to cut away enough of the sludge that Minato was able to slip away, and with nothing to bind, the mud melted into a pile of dark liquid.

Accepting the proffered hand, the blond rose to stand with his friend. "Thanks, Hiashi," he breathed in relief, "Not to sound ungrateful, but what are you doing here?"

"Neji, Hinata, and I were at lunch nearby, and we heard the explosion when we were about to head home. I sent the two of them home while I came to see what was going on," he explained. He then smirked, "Besides, there's not much these eyes don't see." Minato just nodded knowingly and released a small chuckle.

Hearing a light rumbling, both turned to look across the street, where Mizuki was trying to dig himself free from the rubble. Finally he was able to yank his leg free of some plaster, and he did not look happy. "I'm really starting to get tired of all of these interruptions…" he growled. With his good arm, he made a half-tiger sign.

Minato and Hiashi were about to carefully walk towards Jaguar to try to free him, but the pile of sludge shot up around them and threatened to engulf them. Minato, thinking fast, threw his kunai away and warped to it, and while Hiashi was trapped, he didn't appear to be too concerned about it. As the Hokage landed near his ANBU commander, the Hyūga leader burst out of the cocoon as he expelled chakra from his entire body, looking rather smug.

Meanwhile, the look on the rogue's was that of complete surprise and fear, and he apparently decided that escaping with his life was better than fighting to the death because he made a leap for the rooftops, but a kunai was thrown right in his path, and the Hokage was soon behind it. Minutes later, an unconscious Mizuki was tied up and leaning against the wall. Standing over him, Minato was joined by Hiashi and his head black ops agent, whose hands were wrapped up in some gauze. "Alright, that's taken care of. Jaguar, I trust you can take care of him from here?" he asked of the injured agent. The ANBU nodded and started talking on a headset, asking for a prisoner transport team, while the turned to the head of the Hyūga. "I appreciate your help, Hiashi. I shouldn't have let it get that far."

"It was no problem, Lord Hokage," Hiashi waved him off, "We would do it any time." He motioned for Minato to move away from the kids, whom he had freed after Mizuki had been neutralized, and once they were far enough away, he asked in a serious tone, "Were those snakes I saw?"

Minato nodded, though his face didn't express any worry. "Yeah, but I wouldn't worry about it. Ibiki will get anything out of him that he knows. That old snake wouldn't risk coming back here." Hiashi looked satisfied and bid his farewell to Minato and the two boys. Minato turned to the two and asked, "Well, are you ready to learn some new techniques, boys?" The grins on their faces gave him his answer all too quickly.

…xXx…

**AN:** Well, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of a hopefully epic saga. Please review and stay tuned!

A bit of information about how this story will be carried out:

-As you can tell, this is an alternate reality where Naruto has a family and Sasuke isn't left on his own. The presence of Minato and Kushina will have a cascading effect on the other characters in the story, and I will be explaining how they came to survive as it becomes relevant.

-The characters themselves are quite different in one major sense. I always thought that the characters in the series were way too young, and I have made an effort to correct that here. The age of the ninja in Naruto's graduating class is 17, allowing for realistic dating and dealing with the situations of the ninja world (therefore making Neji/Lee/Tenten's class up one to 18).

-I will make every attempt to address as many comments as possible that you wonderful readers leave me, but I will steadfastly refuse to address any inflammatory comments, as well as anonymous comments. If you don't like the story, get over it and read something else, don't waste my time or yours.


	2. (Intro Arc 2) Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**(Introductory Arc) Chapter 2 – Enter Hatake Kakashi! Team 7 is Born!**

A couple of days after the graduation ceremony and the mess involving the traitorous Mizuki, a certain young Uzumaki and young Uchiha found themselves in the administrative building of the Hidden Leaf Village, each clutching a file folder with their respective name on it. As both were regular guests in the building, the receptionist in the lobby waved them by without a second glance. Running up the stairs towards the office of the most powerful man in the village, when they reached it, Naruto burst in unannounced, completely ignoring the ANBU agents stationed outside, who had sadly come to expect this kind of behavior. Sasuke nodded briefly to them and followed the hyperactive blond in just in time to hear him shout, "Hey, Dad! Here's my profile for the yearbook!"

Minato was sitting at his desk, deep in concentration as he scanned some various documents and scrolls as well as mission reports on his laptop, and without missing a beat or looking up he said, "I'd better not have to send you back to the photo studio because you took a stupid picture, Naruto." The young blond's face took on a grumpy frown as he stalked across the room and gruffly handed the folder to his father. The Hokage took a moment's break from his work and opened the manila envelope. After taking a quick glance at it, he was satisfied with what he saw and set it on a pile of other profiles. "Sasuke, here I'll take yours, too," he added, and the young Uchiha immediately obliged, handing his dossier over without any fanfare.

As Minato took the profile of his son's best friend, he set it on top of the others without a second thought, and Naruto's grumpy expression soured further as he observed this. "You didn't even look at his profile, Dad. Talk about favorites…" he mumbled, only being somewhat serious.

The elder blond was about to respond, no doubt with a similarly snarky response, but he was interrupted by the door to his office bursting open. All three occupants turned their gaze in that direction as a boy, no older than 13, dashed in with a shuriken in his hands, yelling, "Let's go Uncle!" The intruder caught father, son, and family friend all off guard, but once they got a good look at the boy, their expressions shifted from shock to varying levels of amusement or exasperation. The severity of the threat was downplayed even further as the kid tripped over his long scarf on the way in and fell flat on his face. It wasn't lost on the elder boys that the ANBU agents were ever so slightly shaking their heads in disbelief as they shut the doors to the Hokage's office.

Everyone in the room groaned internally as they all thought the same thing, 'It's Konohamaru…'

Moments later, a tall man burst into the room. Adorned in a standard flak jacket, black body suit, and bandana style headband, he shouted, "Honorable grandson, just what do you think you're doing? You are wasting precious time that we could be spending furthering your educa…"

"Oh shut up, you loser!" the boy named Konohamaru interjected loudly, "I haven't learned something new from you in weeks. Time for some real action!" As the scorned teacher spluttered in indignation, the young man turned his attention back to Minato, who looked more amused than scared, shouting, "Are you ready, Uncle?" He had managed to pick himself up off of the ground by this point, and he prepared to chuck the shuriken once again, but right before he let the projectile loose, he saw Naruto standing near his father, and all thoughts of his surprise assault were lost. "Boss!" he exclaimed, "What are you doing here?"

The blond genin grinned down at the young man. "I was just turning in my personnel profile. I'm now officially qualified to go on super secret missions!"

"I'd love to see you try to do a 'super secret mission' sometime," Sasuke deadpanned from his side, as Konohamaru gazed star struck at his idol. The hyperactive genin merely stuck his tongue out at his friend as he turned to his father and said, "I'll see you later, Dad! Come on, Sasuke! I'm starving!"

"Chill out, Naruto. Ichiraku won't be sold out, especially if they know you're coming," the young Uchiha said flatly, "There's no need to be in such a hurry."

Their voices quickly faded, but Minato managed to catch an exclamation of, "That's not funny!" accompanied by a look of sheer horror, before the teens fell out of earshot, and he enjoyed a quick laugh at his son's expense.

By this time, the tutor Ebisu had made his way over to the elder blond's desk and was falling all over himself trying to apologize to Minato for the disturbance. "My sincerest apologies, Lord Hokage. I just went to the bathroom for a few moments and he disappeared from my sight and…"

He continued to babble for a few seconds, but his superior interrupted him, mostly because he had heard it all before and wasn't interested in having his day wasted away. He held a hand up to interrupt the stream of nonsense streaming out of the jōnin's mouth and said, "Uh, Ebisu...I appreciate your efforts to continue the education and care of your student, but…I'd just like to point out…your student isn't here anymore…" Minato was almost immediately greeted by a perverse feeling of pleasure at seeing Ebisu's face shift from a stark white to a deep red flush to finally setting on a purple haze of anger as the tutor's rant came to a screeching halt. An unholy shriek erupted from his mouth as he ran out the door, presumably to chase the teenagers to Ichiraku.

The blond Hokage allowed himself a small chuckle as he thought, 'The best decision of my life was not allowing that man anywhere near Naruto…,' before resuming the work laid out in front of him.

...xXx...

Naruto pushed his final bowl of ramen forward and sighed contently. The owner of the stand, Teuchi, and his daughter Ayame were well used to how much the young blond could pack away, but even sharing meals with him on a regular basis did not allow the young Uchiha a complete understanding of the depths of the Uzumaki's stomach. His dark eyes moved to the counter, and he shook his head in utter amazement. Yes, he confirmed to himself, there were seven large ramen bowls now stacked in front of his friend, while he only had one empty large bowl lying in front of him. "It's unbelievable and somewhat disgusting how much ramen you can consume, Naruto," he murmured.

"You're just jealous," the blond sneered back at him, patting his full stomach.

The young Uchiha waved him off. "That's not exactly the word I'd use to describe it," he muttered as he threw enough money on the counter to cover both of them, being his turn to pay for lunch.

The two young genin got up from the small stand and walked out into the street (in Naruto's case, waddled). They made to head home, but the sharp eyes of the Uchiha caught an anomaly: an oddly lumpy patch of brick on a nearby office building made of cement. He lightly tapped his stuffed friend on the shoulder, and the blond's eyes shifted to the indicated spot. Rolling his eyes, he stalked over to it and stood there for a few moments, hoping that the 'wall' would give up and reveal its true identity. When it didn't, he stalked over and kicked the lumpy piece of wall hard, earning a muffled yelp in response. "I can see you, Konohamaru! That's not doing anything to cover you!" he shouted angrily, "It helps if you use the right side of the camouflage!"

The piece of cloth fell away, revealing the young Sarutobi, and both of the older boys noted that even if Konohamaru had chosen the other side, it wouldn't have helped very much because the other side was bright pink. The younger teen ran over with a look of awe on his face. "I expect only the best from you, boss! You saw right through that disguise!" he said, ignoring the incredulous looks that both older boys gave him. "Are you free right now? You have to teach me that Oirike no Jutsu (Sexy Technique) that you've been telling me about! Please, please, please!"

Since he technically did not have anything that he had to do and therefore could not deny the youngster in good conscience, Naruto sighed, told his friend he'd be home later for dinner, and grabbed his young protégé by his scarf. "Okay, Konohamaru, let's get this over with…"

...xXx...

"Where is that ruffian?!" Ebisu shouted to no one in particular as he looked all over the city for his student, to no avail, "How have I not found them yet? There can't be that many boys running around in orange jumpsuits and scarfs!"

The only response he earned was from the tenant of the room below him shouting, "Shut up, you psycho! I'm trying to eat in peace here!"

A tenant from another apartment chimed in with, "No one wants to hear about your love of young boys! Take it somewhere else!"

Finally, a man who was nearby on the roof taking a smoke bellowed, "Get the hell out of here before I call the cops!" Having been thoroughly embarrassed, Ebisu took back off across the rooftops in search of his charge.

...xXx...

"Oirike no Jutsu!" Naruto observed as his new student was engulfed in light smoke and the transformation took place. This had to be at least the twentieth time that the young man had attempted the technique, and the blond was trying to convince himself that Konohamaru's teechnique couldn't get any worse than his previous results. Any hope that he had of success soon dissipated along with the haze as a fat, short, ugly woman stood where the academy student had been, attempting a flirty pose but failing miserably.

Completely repulsed, the young Uzumaki exploded, "NO! You need to be thinner, cuter, taller, FEMININE!"

Transforming back, the grandson of the Hokage was pouting as he shot back, "I'm doing my best boss but it's hard! I've been trying this for an hour and I'm not still getting any better at it!"

Sensing that his younger protégé was getting discouraged, Naruto decided that it was time for a change of pace, so he relented and said, "Okay, okay, okay, let's just rest for a moment. It won't do either of us any good to get angry about this."

"Why is it so hard though?" the younger boy asked, "Isn't this just a normal Transformation technique? I can do those just fine…"

Naruto considered Konohamaru's question. The kid did have a point, and it was hard to explain the difference, but it was an explanation that he had figured out along the course of his research when inventing the technique for the first time. "This involves your mind much more than just a simple Transformation Technique." He gestured his hands towards his head. "When your teachers ask you to transform into someone or something, like a person or an object, they're asking you to transform into a definite entity, right?"

"Yeah, I can't tell you how many times I've turned into Iruka-sensei," Konohamaru responded grumpily.

"We all went through it. Anyways, I based this technique off of a sexy woman, but the actual transformation only changes me into an attractive female version of myself, something that sounds easy but is a lot harder than it sounds. It helps to picture yourself when you are performing the technique instead of whatever woman you are trying to emulate. You have to be realistic with your goals." Naruto paused for a moment as he tried to come up with a suitable example. "You know how your voice never sounds the same on a recording as it does in real life?" Konohamaru nodded in confirmation. "It's a similar problem to that. You always have an idea of your physical characteristics, but when you have to apply them, it's much harder to visualize than if your subject was another person who you could look at. Does that make more sense?"

The young boy nodded, seemingly strengthening his understanding, so Naruto decided to change the subject. "Let's not worry about that for the time being. I want to ask you some questions." He gestured the younger boy to where he was sitting on a log as an invitation to join him, which is what he did.

"Like what?" Konohamaru seemed somewhat confused by that.

"Well, first off, why did you attack my dad like that? You got something on your mind?"

The younger boy's eyes shifted downward, and Naruto could tell he hit a nerve. "It's because I want respect. No one ever sees me as me. They only see me as the 'honorable grandson.' I want to become the Hokage so people will respect me and see me for who I am," Konohamaru said determinedly.

"That's bullshit." Konohamaru's head jerked up in surprise as he looked at the unusually serious face of his elder friend. "Why do you think I'm out here with you, helping you out instead of hanging out with my friends? I see you as a friend, even if you do bug the living hell out of me sometimes." The younger boy's head drooped in slight embarrassment, even as his lips twitched up in a smile, and Naruto's expression lightened slightly as he continued, "And don't think I'm teaching you all of my secrets. I have to save some for myself, seeing as I'm going to be the next Hokage!"

"Wow, boss, you're so cool," Konohamaru said in wonder, as his sadness was dispelled by the uplifting words of his idol.

Naruto jumped to his feet and grinned down at his student. "Enough of all this serious talk! Let's get back to work!"

The young Sarutobi followed his lead and expressed his confirmation, "You got it!"

…xXx…

Two hours later, the two teenagers were still practicing when they heard some rustling in the trees nearby and a shout of, "There you two ruffians are!" Naruto and Konohamaru turned around and saw Ebisu standing on a tree branch nearby, panting heavily. He didn't look pleased as he said forcefully, "I have been looking around for you two all day, and you have wasted my time long enough! Now, honorable grandson, please come back!"

"No way. How about you try this on for size! Oirike no Jutsu!" Konohamaru shouted as he transformed into a nude, attractive brunette woman with barely concealing clouds around her.

Naruto whistled and clapped appreciatively at the newfound success of his student. "Excellent form, good proportions, nice attractive pose! You've definitely improved!" he lauded his student.

Unfortunately, Ebisu covered his eyes in horror at the display in front of him and appeared invulnerable to the assault on his eyes. "What kind of vulgar display is this? Who taught this to you?" he blurted angrily, "This is most unbecoming of a ninja of the Hidden Leaf Village! You should be ashamed of yourself!" The transformed Sarutobi was disappointed to see that his technique seemingly had no effect on the supposed pervert, and he dropped the illusion as he gave the flustered tutor an ugly look.

Seeing his student discouraged as he dispelled the provocative technique, Naruto's anger was ignited, and he marched up to Ebisu and shouted, "No one bashes my techniques like that and gets away with it! Let's see how you like this! Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Technique)!"

Ebisu appeared markedly unimpressed as the sunglasses-adorned ninja peeked between his hands and scoffed at the multiple blonds that poofed into existence around him. "So you know how to create Shadow Clones? That's not exactly a rare technique among the more elite of the village," Ebisu scoffed.

All of the Uzumakis smirked triumphantly. "I'm not done yet, you pervert!" he shouted confidently, "Take this! Hāremu no Jutsu (Harem Technique)!" Naruto and his clones disappeared and were replaced by a gaggle of naked, busty blond women that immediately swarmed the tutor and started hugging him and rubbing their various bare body parts against him. Ebisu was caught completely off guard and rocketed back because of the geysers of blood erupting from his nose.

"That'll teach you to underestimate my techniques, you pervy old man!" Naruto shouted as he dispelled the transformations and clones. The elder jōnin gave one last twitch and then passed out from a combination of pleasure and blood loss, thoroughly defeated by his junior. The blond genin went over and kicked the foot of the man to see if he could elicit any reaction, and upon receiving none, he smirked triumphantly.

His younger counterpart wasn't nearly as excited. "Aw man, I couldn't beat him again. Dang it! Why didn't he fall for my technique? Even you said it was perfect!" Konohamaru shouted in a frustrated tone.

"Konohamaru, you can't get to the top immediately. You have to work for it," Naruto said patiently, walking over to pat the academy student on the head, "Your technique was fine, but you have to remember that there's always room for improvement." His smile took on a more mischievous look as he added, "And don't forget you'll have to fight me once you get to the top, because I'll be there, waiting for you!" Noticing that the sun was dipping lower in the sky, he took a quick moment to check his mobile and noted that it had gotten late, so shouted a quick farewell to the younger boy and started to jog back home.

Elsewhere, Minato had observed the entire afternoon through the Hokage's all-seeing crystal ball, having decided that it was a much better use of his time than finishing paperwork that could be at a later time (such was the leisure of peacetime). 'Thank you, Naruto. You may not know the depth of what you've done for Konohamaru now, but one day you will, and he'll repay you in full,' he thought proudly before packing up the crystal ball and preparing to head home to a wonderful home cooked dinner by his beautiful wife.

…xXx…

The next day, all of the most recent graduates gathered back in their old classroom, along with their former teacher in a mirror image of the graduation exam only a few days before. Everyone was sitting in the exact same spots that they had occupied during their time as students as they discussed team arrangements.

"So, how do you think the teams will shake out?" Kiba asked. Looking pointedly at Naruto, he added, "You wouldn't happen to have any inside information, would you Uzumaki?"

The blond's chin was resting on the desk as he grumpily inclined his back towards the dog tamer and replied, "I wish. Dad really stepped up the security in his office this past week. I couldn't get anywhere near it unless the ANBU let me. He really wants it to be a surprise."

Below him, Shikamaru rested his head in his arms, while his best friend sat next to him, contently munching on some crackers. The ponytailed teen muttered in response, "At the very least, I can about guarantee that me and Chōji will be on the same team." A faint look of disgust stained his face as his gaze shifted slightly to the girls sitting in the front rows of the class, and his voice took on a dejected tone, "Of course, that comes with being on a team with _Ino_, but I guess there's no way around that…"

His portly friend's face showed a hint of a smile as he clapped him lightly on the shoulder. "It's okay, pal. I keep telling you, she's really not that bad when she's isolated from her gaggle of girls or the class stud up there," and he jerked his thumb back at a scowling Sasuke and grinned benignly at him.

Shikamaru lifted his head slightly and added, "Yeah, she's had her eyes on someone else for awhile now. She's only interested in boy wonder here to irritate Sakura."

"Wait a second, who does she like?" Naruto asked, "That's a new one on me." The somewhat curious looks on Kiba and Sasuke's faces indicated their surprise as well.

The lazy genius planted his head back in his arms and closed his eyes. "That's for me to know and for you to find out. Besides, it's not my place to disclose that."

"At any rate, that at least eliminates Ino from being on whatever team I'm on," Sasuke admitted grudgingly, "Though that still leaves Sakura. I have never liked Hinata more than I do now…"

Kiba chuckled and said, "I don't see what the big problem is, I'd kill to have Ino or Sakura on my team. I've been trying to get one of them to go out with me for the longest time!" Akamaru gave a short bark of approval, which earned him a scratch on the head.

Next to him, Shino sat in quiet contemplation, murmuring, "I must admit I agree with Sasuke, Kiba. Why? Hinata is probably the most normal of all the girls, and my tenants are not fond of loud voices like those of Ino and Sakura." His friend made a face at him and continued to pet his puppy.

"Man, you're a real buzzkill, you know that?" the dog trainer groaned. His fellow animal user merely shrugged and remained silent.

Meanwhile, down below the boys a similar conversation was taking place amongst the females of the class. Hinata silently observed as Ino and Sakura bickered rather loudly about who was more deserving of being the teammate of the young Uchiha.

"I'm telling you, Ino, you've got no chance. You know you're going to be stuck with Chōji and Shikamaru," the pinkette crowed triumphantly.

The blonde girl shrugged and simply smirked at her friend/rival. "That's fine by me. He'll get tired of you being so close all the time and want to branch out," she retorted smoothly.

Hinata giggled lightly at her friends' antics, which drew their attention to the lavender-eyed girl. "So what about you, Hinata? Looking forward to being on a team with your favorite foxy fighter?" Ino said slyly, as both girls leaned in to hear her answer.

The Hyūga girl flushed but shot back a quick response at her friends, "While that would be nice, I highly doubt that we'd be on a team together. Both my father and my uncle seem to think that I'd be a good fit with Kiba and Shino as a tracker team, and I don't see a reason to contradict that."

"But you've liked Naruto forever, right? It'll be hard to catch his attention if you aren't teamed up with him, and outside of Ino's team, there really isn't a certainty where we'll be placed," Sakura kept pressuring her friend.

Hinata sighed and shrugged, her face still tinted a bright red. "It's like we've hit a wall where we're friends, like we all are with each other, but he just doesn't seem to notice anything past that." Her eyes began to ever so slightly tear up.

Ino and Sakura shared a look, and the blond girl said, "Well, no one ever confused Naruto for his father when talking about brains, that's for sure." She and Sakura both slung an arm around their friend's shoulders, and Ino continued, "Just give it time, he'll come around." The pinkette nodded in agreement, and Hinata managed a small smile despite her distress.

The quiet murmuring amongst the students ceased as the scarred chūnin standing at the head of the classroom cleared his throat. "Okay, graduates, today you will be meeting your jōnin instructor and learning who among you will be teamed together. When I call your name, please take note of your team leader and other team members," Iruka said, picking up a clipboard from his desk. Sakura quickly looked back and gave Sasuke a quick wave, and Ino, not one to be upstaged, winked and blew a kiss at the young Uchiha, drawing a glare from her friend for her trouble. The boy in question could only cringe and slouch in his seat.

Naruto smirked at his best friend's plight and whispered, "Sasuke, you know, this would all go away if you just got a girlfriend." The only response that he received was a glare, so the young blond just shrugged, though the smirk persisted much to Sasuke's ire.

Iruka quickly ran through the first teams before arriving at the seventh on his list. In a loud voice, he said, "Team 7, Uzumaki Naruto..."

Naruto immediately jumped up and cheered loudly.

"...Uchiha Sasuke..."

The blond teen continued his rambunctious celebration, while Sasuke closed his eyes and exhaled in relief.

"...and Haruno Sakura!" Naruto abruptly stopped celebrating, while Sasuke's sigh turned into a cough as he inhaled sharply. Naruto's celebration was quickly taken up by the pink-haired kunoichi cheering, which coincidentally covered up the groans coming from Ino.

Iruka waited a moment for the feminine commotion to simmer down before announcing the rest of the teams. "Next is Team 8, Hyūga Hinata, Aburame Shino, and Inuzuka Kiba! Team 10, Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, and Akimichi Chōji!" The teacher set the team assignments back on his desk and looked at his former charges, a hint of sadness in his eyes. "Please remain in this room and wait for your jōnin instructors to arrive. It was an honor to teach all of you…yes, even you, Naruto," as the boy in question gestured to himself in mock surprise, "I wish you all the best with your new teammates!"

As he left the room, the students scattered around the room and acquainted themselves with their new teammates. However, the new members of Team 7 did not do that. Sasuke stood up and stiffly walked out of the room without saying a word to anyone. Naruto did not think much of it, as he went to chat with Chōji and Shikamaru, and both of the new male members of Team 10 joined in the conversation (though it admittedly was mostly Kiba, Shino just nodded at times).

"What'd I tell you?" Shikamaru said, throwing his arms up in disgust, "Me, Chōji, and _Ino_. Can't wait for that." His chubby friend chuckled as he polished off the box of crackers he had been munching on.

"Yeah, and I kinda guess it makes sense for the two of us to be with Hinata as well," Kiba added, gesturing to his new hooded teammate, "We're all sensory type shinobi, so putting us together to form a detection squad makes sense." Shino nodded his agreement.

"Which leaves Sakura for me and Sasuke. Oh joy," Naruto deadpanned, "Why couldn't we have gotten Hinata instead, she would have been so much better than that pink harpy." He immediately saw all of his compatriots gain an evil glint in their eyes, surprisingly even Shino, and started waving his hands frantically. "N-N-Not for any particular reason of course, I'm j-j-just looking out for Sasuke!"

"Suuuure…keep telling yourself that," Kiba muttered slyly, the smirk still planted firmly on his face. The blond heard the barking laughter of Kurama reverberating through his head, and the snickering of both his best friend and Chōji soon joined that. Shikamaru simply shook his head in disbelief and went back to napping.

"Well, I'd better go check on Sasuke and see how he's doing!" the blond said quickly and darted out of the room. He exited the room quickly and took a breath once he was safe outside. He walked down the hall to the lavatory and found his friend with his face in the sink being doused by the faucet. Not saying a word, he walked over and patted the young Uchiha on the back, and his response was a soft groan. "I know, I know. I don't want a fangirl on our team any more than you do…"

...xXx...

"Where is that bum?" Naruto shouted angrily. It had been three hours and the other eight teams had already left with their Jōnin instructors. However...one team, specifically Team 7, was still waiting for their unknown instructor to arrive.

"You know who it probably is, don't you?" Sasuke mentioned, "There's only one person in this entire village with a habitual tardiness problem this bad…"

The blond thought for a moment, and then the person that his friend had mentioned came to mind. "Okay, that's it," he muttered, "If it's him, I'm definitely pranking him for being so late. Let's see, what's in here that I could use?" A rather devious look sprouted on his face as he began to dart around the room looking for worthy pranking materials.

"Naruto, don't do something to embarrass us! I don't want to look bad in front of…our new sensei!" Sakura whined, hesitating at the end of her statement as she likely diverted from her original intent of saying her crush's name. Both of her teammates chose to ignore her, the Uchiha even joining in the hunt for something worthwhile, and a minute later, Naruto found what he was looking for.

"Found it!" he shouted triumphantly as he held up a chalk eraser. "Okay, this is good, now how about I put it in the door so it falls on him when he comes in?" Naruto dragged a chair over to the door to stand on and carefully placed the eraser up near the top of the door so it would fall on anyone who walked in and slid the door open.

'**So juvenile, but I admit it would be funny if he fell for it,'** Kurama thought as he watched the whole undertaking through his host's field of vision.

The excitable blond went back to sitting, looking much more pleased with himself. Sasuke shook his head in disbelief, though inside he was looking forward to the reaction of their new teacher. The lone female, still disgusted at the prank, continued her futile attempts to strike up conversation with the dark haired teen who steadfastly refused to acknowledge her presence.

A few minutes later, footsteps outside the room indicated the potential arrival of their jōnin leader. Naruto started to grin evilly as the door slid open. All that the three genin only caught a quick glimpse of the man - a tall man with a mask covering his face from the nose down; wild, gray hair; and a Hidden Leaf forehead protector covering his left eye.

All three Genin had similar thoughts. Naruto's eyes narrowed, and his lips puckered in a mixture of surprise and disgust. 'He could at least make an effort to dodge it. It's not like he wasn't expecting something from me…'

Sasuke's expression didn't change except a slight twitch of his eye. 'And this is the guy that the Fourth Hokage can't stop praising…?'

Sakura didn't make any effort to hide her shock. 'I can't believe that guy fell for that. Is he really a jōnin?'

The tall ninja took a moment to dust off and then slowly scanned the three young graduates with his lone visible eye. Once satisfied, he declared, "Well, from my first impression, I'd have to say... (the three tensed up) I hate you!"

Sakura and Naruto fell backwards in their seats, and Sasuke added mentally, 'Wow, a bit presumptuous, isn't he?'

The jōnin said nothing more and instead started to walk out of the room, throwing a remark over his shoulder, "Meet me on the roof in five minutes," before disappearing into the hallway. All three of the genin watched him leave and shared a look of disgust with each other.

...xXx...

After overcoming the somewhat unsettling first meeting with their teacher, the newly formed team reluctantly made their way to the roof of the academy. All of them were surprised to see that the elder ninja was actually there, given his earlier tardiness. While lounging on one of the concrete blocks set in front of the bench area, he was seemingly immersed in the small orange book that was partially concealing his face.

And by immersed, it appeared that he was completely out of touch with reality, the only indication that he was even awake being the odd giggles that he would release every now and then. Naruto cleared his throat in an attempt to get his attention, but the only response he received was another giggle. Only after an extremely loud cough right in the gray-haired ninja's ear did his eye shift from the pages to his students. "Oh, sorry about that. I didn't notice you were here," the jōnin said nonchalantly, "This book is just so interesting I tend to space out." Before any of the younger ninja could get a look at the title, their elder stowed it into a pouch, though they all had their suspicions. "Now, let's get to know each other a little better," he said simply, "Why don't you all share some stuff about yourselves?"

"What kinds of things, sensei?" Naruto asked curiously.

"Well, the usual, favorite things, your hates, dreams, ambitions, hobbies, things like that."

"Why don't you go first? We all know a little about each other, but we really don't know anything about you," Sakura stated, and both of her teammates nodded in confirmation.

The tall man shrugged indifferently. "If you insist. My name's Hatake Kakashi. I don't really want to talk about my likes and dislikes, and my dreams are none of your business," Kakashi stated lazily. As his students gave him varying looks of incredulity, he added, almost as an after note, "I do have a lot of hobbies."

"He said a ton, but all we learned was his name, and even that we knew already..." Naruto muttered in annoyance. Both of his new teammates sighed.

Either Kakashi didn't hear Naruto's complaint, or he just didn't care, as he pointed at Sakura and said, "Enough about me. Let's start with our lovely female."

Looking only slightly startled at being singled out, the pink-haired girl nevertheless launched into her self-introduction. "Okay then. My name is Haruno Sakura. While my family isn't part of a clan, both of my parents are jōnin in the village. I don't have any particular specialties like many clans do, but I have been told that my chakra is suited for genjutsu, much like my parents. I like to spend quality girl time with my best friend Yamanaka Ino, and I hate spicy foods with a fiery passion. In terms of hobbies, when all of our graduating class gets together, I am unstoppable at trivia. My dreams…" Her cheeks flushed a light pink, and she said no more. Naruto rolled his eyes, while his other teammate chose not to comment.

"Okay…you next," Kakashi said, pointing at Sasuke.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke, obviously of the Uchiha clan. As such, I'm skilled in the use of Katon techniques. I like learning powerful jutsu and exploring the woods around the village, but I can't stand sweet food. My dreams are to return the Uchiha clan to its former glory, and my only real hobby is training."

"Thank you, now you," Kakashi said as he pointed at Naruto, who was itching to start.

"Okay, my name's Uzumaki Naruto! I'm the product of the best of the Uzumaki clan and the most powerful Hokage of all time, as well as the host of the great and mightly Nine Tailed Demon Fox, also known as Kurama."

"**Ya damn straight**," said all-powerful fox scoffed as he rolled over and went back to sleep.

Naruto continued, "Out of anything in the entire world, the thing that I love the most is ramen! I can't stand anyone that threatens my family.

My dream is to become the next Hokage, even stronger than my dad and cooler than my mom! My hobbies are training with Sasuke and gardening."

Kakashi nodded appreciatively as his last student finished his introduction. "Good. Now that we know each other a little better (Sakura and Naruto slapped their faces in disbelief), let's get down to business. Tomorrow, we'll have our first mission, and it will involve only the members of this team," he explained.

The three young genin's faces took on varying expressions of curiosity. "What will we be doing, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked.

"In short, survival exercises. You see, only 9 of the 27 graduates from this year will go on to become true ninja of the Hidden Leaf Village. This is to weed out the ones that don't belong, per se," Kakashi said with a chuckle, "If you aren't up to snuff, I'm sending you back to the academy for a year."

"Oh, great, so we only have a 33% chance of becoming a genin?" Naruto shouted angrily.

"Yep! Isn't that swell?" Kakashi said cheerfully, "Okay, here is the protocol for the mission tomorrow. We will meet at Training Ground 7 at 8 AM tomorrow morning. Don't be late, and don't bother eating breakfast." He pulled out three scrolls from his belt pouch and gave them to his students before disappearing in a poof of smoke.

The young genin looked at the scrolls in their hands with varying degrees of disgust. "Okay...that was just a tad odd..." Naruto muttered.

Both of his teammates nodded in agreement, and Sasuke added, "It is Kakashi, though. Uncle Minato described him perfectly."

...xXx...

The next morning found the three young genin near exploding in anger as their teacher arrived at the training grounds...3 hours late. "Good morning, you guys!" Kakashi said pleasantly, seemingly not noticing his tardiness or the tense mood hanging over the area.

Naruto, having the least restraint of the three, shouted as loud as possible, "YOU'RE LATE!"

Of course, that didn't seem to faze the jōnin in the least. "Sorry for being a little tardy. I was helping an old lady across the street," he replied. Any retort the blond had prepared to throw back at his teacher was thrown out the window at the sheer ridiculousness of the excuse, something else the two boys had been warned about.

As his three students tried to figure out his excuse, Kakashi put his backpack down and pulled out an alarm clock, three bento boxes, and two bells tied to strings. He placed the alarm clock and bento boxes on one of the three stumps nearby, tied the bells to his belt, and started to explain the mission, "Okay, this clock is set to go off at noon. Your task is to get these bells," and he indicated his new belt accessories, "from me before then. If you do not manage to obtain a bell, you get tied to the stump, and I eat your lunch in front of you. And since there are only two bells, I get at least one lunch."

All three genin gulped, and their stomachs growled angrily. 'So that's why he didn't want us to eat breakfast,' they all thought, growing increasingly disgruntled with their strange sensei.

"You may use any weapons you want, and you must come at me with the intent to kill. You have one hour. Begin!" Kakashi proclaimed, and the three genin dashed off in different directions.

...xXx...

Naruto jumped from tree to tree, trying to find one or both of his teammates, when he saw some movement in the bushes. He jumped down and saw his female teammate partially concealed underneath a large bush. He landed as quietly as possible next to her and loudly whispered, "Sakura!" He acted quickly when she turned around in fright and covered her mouth with his hand before she could squeak. Once he was sure she wouldn't freak and she knew it was him, he took the hand off of her mouth. That earned him a slap on the head.

"Don't ever do that again, you moron!" she hissed, ignoring his moan, "What do you want?"

Naruto grimaced as his rubbed his head as he countered with, "Do you really want to fight a jōnin on your own? We need to work together to take him down." Taking a quick glance at the clearing that the tall, silver-haired man was currently standing in, he continued, "I think I know what the purpose of this test is. We have to work together to get those bells. Since there are only two bells, the test is designed to pit us against ourselves. Now, if only Sasuke was here…"

"No need, I'm here. Now, what do we need to do?" the aforementioned genin asked as he jumped down from a tree.

"Okay, listen up. I'm only saying this once. First, we..." and Naruto started to explain his plan to his teammates.

...xXx...

Meanwhile, a few giggles were escaping from the jōnin's mouth as he read his favorite book, _Icha Icha Paradise_. Taking a moment to check his watch, he shut the little orange book and tucked it back into his belt pouch before walking across the clearing in front of him. 'I wonder where my students got off to,' Kakashi thought, 'I'm hoping that this bunch will be different than the rest, especially with sensei's son…' Some rustling in a nearby bush alerted him to Naruto's presence as the blond shot out of the shrubbery.

"Hey, Kakashi-sensei, I'm taking you down once and for all!" the hyperactive genin candidate shouted as he confidently stood in front of the elder ninja.

'…or not,' ran through the jōnin's mind, and as he sighed his hand went back to his pouch to retrieve the book.

Naruto, annoyed at his sensei's behavior, charged Kakashi before he could finish the action. He aimed a kick at elder man's head but missed as his opponent dodged under it. Becoming angrier, he threw a punch next, but his opponent disappeared from sight. The follow through on the punch caused the blond to stumble forward a few feet, and he looked around in confusion, trying to find his teacher.

"Allow me to show you the Hidden Leaf Village's Most Sacred Taijutsu!" Naruto turned his head and saw Kakashi crouched on the ground behind him with his fingers in a tiger seal. "Sennen Goroshi (One Thousand Years of Death)!" the masked ninja shouted with a mad glint in his eye as he…shoved his fingers up Naruto's ass. The face of the blond scrunched up in disgust before he squealed and shot into the air…and promptly disappeared in a puff of smoke.

'A Shadow Clone!' Kakashi thought as his eye widened. He caught some movement out of the corner of his eye, but he saw it too late, as five copies of Sakura quickly surrounded him.

"You can't get away from this, sensei!" they all shouted confidently. Rearing all of their collective arms back, they fired kunai and shuriken at the man surrounded by them. Surprisingly, only two made an impact out of the ten that were thrown, and four of the pink haired girls shimmered away. Unfortunately, the target of their attacks also disappeared in a poof of smoke, and the original pinkette went on the defensive as Kakashi engaged her in a battle of fists. 

Sasuke was in a nearby tree that provided a good view of the area, and when the clone was destroyed, his eyes shot to another place within a cluster of bushes. Ignoring the fight between Sakura and what he assumed was another clone, he began to weave some signs and muttered, "Got you. Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu (Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique)!" He lifted his hand up to his mouth and exhaled, releasing a large ball of red-hot fire that shot at the bushes he had seen something in. Right before it hit, a figure darted out back into the clearing, narrowly escaped being deep-fried.

Unfortunately, he jumped right into the path of Naruto, who had the one-tailed chakra cloak of the Kyūbi surrounding him. The young blond took a swipe at the bells with one of his chakra-enhanced claws, but Kakashi blocked it with his hands. Unfortunately for him, chakra wasn't bound by the same rules as flesh and blood, and the claw snaked around his arm and brushed the bells. The masked man didn't like him getting that close to the bells and kicked his student away, and the bijū host landed nimbly on all fours and eyed the tall man before reengaging him in hand to hand combat.

Back at Sasuke's hiding place, the real Naruto had joined him, and both were watching the battle between the two ninja. "Looks like taijutsu isn't the way to go," the dark haired boy muttered. It was quickly becoming apparent that once their teacher realized that the chakra cloak was the only real way the demon host had at getting the bells, he began taking measures to not let the clone get too close. The Kyūbi-empowered blond was completely outclassed, especially being a somewhat fragile clone, based on the way that Kakashi was dancing around it.

"Didn't we already establish that?" Naruto whined, rubbing his butt where he had been so rudely poked it as the memories from his poor duplicate flooded back to him.

Sasuke ignored him and started to weave signs again. "Just get ready." The blond pouted and started a string of his own as the Uchiha finished his and fired another fireball at the two combatants.

Naruto finished his string a few seconds later and pulled both of his fists back, shouting "Fūton: Reppūshō (Wind Style: Gale Wind Palm)!" before pushing one fist forward, followed by the other. Two large projectiles of pure wind chakra shot out of each thrust and impacted the fireball, which quickly inflated to twice its previous size.

Kakashi stopped his battle with the fox-enhanced Naruto when he heard the roar of growing fire, and his visible eye widened as he saw the fireball heading at him. That slight moment of distraction gave the clone the time to restrain Kakashi in a full nelson. The fireball engulfed the two, but as all three teammates thought, nothing was left afterwards. Sakura was the next one to spot him, the clone fighting her having dispelled shortly after engaging her. The older ninja was looking a little winded at this point. Sakura took off in his direction and landed near him. Naruto, three of his clones, and Sasuke joined her a second later, cornering Kakashi in a triangle formation.

The jōnin examined his new charges, trying to figure out what their next move would be. He wasn't in for a long wait, as the three genin soon made their move. Sakura quickly and efficiency brought into existence two normal clones, and all three bared various throwing weapons. The original Naruto made one sign, and a moment later, ten blonds stood where three had been, all baring kunai in each hand. Sasuke made the same sign as his best friend, but he only created one clone, and both settled into a taijutsu pose. All of the genin stood, carefully watching Kakashi, and they all tensed up when he moved, but it was only to put away his perverted book that he had been reading. "I don't have all day. Come on, attack me!" he said forcefully.

Sakura didn't need to be told twice, as she and her copies charged straight at her teacher, who turned to face her. All three jabbed forward with their kunai in the same instant, but the more experienced ninja anticipated that and jumped over their strike, countering with a sweeping kick that connected with all three. The two incorporeal clones disappeared in a shimmer, as he expected, but he was surprised to see Naruto's face appear in pain for just a moment before the last "Sakura" disappeared in a puff of smoke. "What?" he mumbled as his visible eye grew wide.

He turned to face the others, but that was all he could say, as one of Naruto's clones had appeared right behind him and turned back into the pink-haired Genin, who said, "I've got you now, sensei!" She launched two more kunai, and this time she connected, and Kakashi didn't disappear.

"He's real this time!" Naruto exclaimed, "Do it Sasuke!"

Kakashi twirled around and faced the two Uchiha standing alone, but twin cries of "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!" came not from other there, but from the mass of Naruto clones to his left. Kakashi couldn't do anything except look at the massive fireball heading his way before he was engulfed in flames.

As the flames died down, the three genin plus the remaining clones observed that all that was left was a burnt patch of land, with the two bells lying there. "There's no way this is that easy…" Sasuke said suspiciously.

"Where's he disappeared off to?" Naruto asked, his narrowed eyes showing his suspicion. All three looked around their area, but it was obvious that their teacher chose a wise hiding spot.

"Sakura, you stay back. Naruto, we'll slowly go for the bells," Sasuke ordered his teammates. While their pink-haired teammate stayed back and continued to look around, the young Uchiha and his blond teammate crept towards the scorched earth until they were right on top of the bells.

Sakura noticed the slight cracking of the ground a second before her friends and teammates reached the bells. Unfortunately, her cry of "Look out!" was too late, as both Naruto and Sasuke disappeared into the dirt and were replaced by Kakashi. As he picked up the bells, Sakura saw that the only thing that remained above ground of her teammates was their heads. He turned to face his lone, above ground student and said, "Doton: Shinjū Zanchu no Jutsu (Earth Style: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique). Care to try it out, Sakura?"

"Not hardly! Get him!" she cried, as the remaining clones charged at the jōnin. However, a loud ringing in the distance stopped all movement.

"Well, it looks like time's up…" Kakashi said. He released his technique, and Naruto and Sasuke were soon able to dig themselves out of the earth, dispersing their clones as soon as they were out of the dirt. All three students looked rather disgruntled at their failure.

"Would it be needless to say that you all understand the importance of teamwork?" he asked, though he already knew the answer to his question. His three students nodded in agreement, and he smiled. "Well, then you pass! Let's go get some lunch. There's nothing in those bento boxes anyways." In his head he thought, 'I should have listened to sensei more…'

"Ichiraku, here we come!" Naruto exclaimed triumphantly. Sakura and Sasuke could only shake their heads in amazement, while Kakashi looked at his charges in slight confusion, not knowing what his wallet was in for.

...xXx...

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! The current pace is unlikely to remain, as I have a few chapters already written and am revising them to fit this story.


	3. (Land of Waves 1) Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**(Land of Waves) Chapter 3 – Team 7 Moves Out! To the Land of Waves!**

The leaves rustled in the trees in the forest as three figures darted through the forest outside the village gates, closely followed by a taller figure. Halting on a tree that overlooked a small pond and grassy patch in the woods, the three smaller ones stopped on higher branches, while the tallest came to a rest below them. "Leader to team, do you see the target?" he said softly into the microphone.

"Cherry Blossom to leader, target spotted on the far side of the clearing," Sakura murmured as her eyes trained on the target, currently lapping some water from the pond.

The taller figure's visible eye shifted to the orange animal, even though he was aware of its presence the entire time. "Alright," Kakashi replied, "Fox, take the target. Fire Flower, back him up." The other two figures nodded and shot into the clearing. The orange bundle quickly caught onto the ruse but was not fast enough to escape the two ninjas.

Naruto was holding the legs of the angry feline, but he was still having a hard time controlling it, especially due to the powerful claw slashes he was receiving to the face. "Why do we always get stuck capturing this damn cat?" he complained as his cheek was gouged by a particularly vicious swipe, "Can't its owner put it on a leash or something?"

Sasuke stood next to him, not really wanting to help. "I'd rather know why we have such stupid codenames?" he muttered in response, and Sakura nodded her agreement with that assessment. Seeing that Naruto had the cat mostly under control, the young Uchiha tapped his mike and added, "Target confirmed. The Daimyo's wife's cat has been recovered."

That statement only served to enrage the feline even more, and it began to attack with more fervor. "Stupid cat!" Naruto screeched as he attempted to dodge the cat's vicious claws, to no avail.

Sakura and Kakashi landed in the clearing with the two boys. The pink-haired girl looked about as disgusted as the cut up blond, and the jōnin could only shake his head at the antics of his knucklehead student. "Come on, guys, let's report back to the Hokage. You probably should help out Naruto as well before that cat rips him in two," he said. Both Sasuke and Sakura grimaced visibly but moved to help out the stricken blond.

Twenty minutes later, Kakashi and Team 7 stood in the mission assignment room, waiting for their next assignment. Naruto's father sat at a desk in front of them, surrounded by scrolls sorted by difficulty and currently nursing a near-empty cup of coffee. His laptop continually flashed as new reports and mission requests came in at a hectic pace.

The Daimyō's wife, Madam Shijimi, continued to hug (or in the view of everyone else in the room, strangle) her beloved cat to a literal death off to the side, while the poor animal screeched in terror. Upon viewing this, everyone in the room minus the rather large woman unknowingly shared the same thought: 'No wonder the cat runs away so much…' After paying a hefty sum for the retrieval of her pet, the woman left with the aggrieved cat, and Minato quietly added another mission to the selections of D-ranked missions before perusing the entire list.

"Okay, Team 7, today we have weeding the garden of an injured shinobi, finding Madam Shijimi's cat again when it runs away in about ten minutes, or walking the Inuzuka clan's dog pack. What will it be?" he asked as he looked over the various D-Rank missions left on the scroll.

Naruto, who had been shaking the entire time, finally blew his stack. "That's it, I'm tired of all these piddly missions, Dad! I want a C- or B-rank mission! Let someone else find that dumb cat! Give us something that's an actual challenge for a change!" Sasuke and Sakura said nothing out of respect for their leader but silently agreed with him. Kakashi also kept his mouth shut but shook his head in a mixture of disbelief and exasperation.

The elder blond smiled gently, recognizing his wife's explosive temper manifesting itself in their son. "Naruto, you know that you have to work your way up to difficult missions by proving yourself capable of handling the workload required of your rank. The missions are assigned different levels of difficulty based on the challenges and potential danger of the mission, and that determines who can perform them," his father explained patiently. He gestured to the scrolls on the table in front of him, "D- and C-rank missions are low risk with high turnover assignments ideal for genin level ninja, C- and B-rank are chūnin level missions that might pose some amount of danger to the ninja who perform them, and B-rank and above are for jōnin who can handle themselves in fierce combat." He gestured to the largest pile of documents on his desk. "We give genin a lot of these D-rank missions for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of how the village works and to build up your strength in anticipation of being sent on a C-rank mission for the first time."

The Hokage paused and thought for a moment, regarding Kakashi's team carefully and looking at a mission history for their squad before picking up a scroll from a different pile. "But...since you have done 10 D-rank missions, and you've completed them with relative ease, I think I can let you have a C-rank mission without too much worry." He quickly scanned the mission summary, and finding it to be appropriate, he turned over the scroll to Kakashi, who also began to read it lazily. "I think this mission will be perfect for your team. Protection detail is a great way to start your rise in the mission ranks. The individual in question is a world renowned architect needing assistance returning to his home." Tapping the buzzer on his desk, he spoke into it, "Come on in!"

A few moments later, the door to the room opened, and the gaze of Team Kakashi shifted over to see a partially intoxicated old man walk in, clutching a half empty bottle of sake. Despite himself, Minato was slightly embarrassed to see this, and all members of Team Kakashi groaned internally thinking about having to protect a drunkard.

"So these are the brats that have to protect me? Not much to get excited about...especially the super obnoxious-looking one in the orange," the old man commented with a slight slur. Naruto looked down at his outfit, his normal black and orange getup, and then glanced at Sakura's red and beige outfit as well as the white and black clothing that Sasuke wore and quickly realized he was the one being insulted.

"Old fart doesn't know good fashion when he sees it…" the blond muttered angrily. Both of his teammates gave the old man skeptical looks after rolling their eyes at Naruto's idea of 'good fashion.'

The sake-wielding man smirked, obviously not insulted in the least, and said, "The name's Tazuna. I'm a bridge-builder that's super famous worldwide. I'm the mastermind behind many of the well-known bridges on this continent." None of the genin seemed all that impressed despite his proclamation, while Kakashi gave a slight nod of his head in greeting, as did his blond teacher.

"Your mission is to escort this man back to his home town in the Wave Country, a few days' travel from here," Minato explained, "He was here consulting with some of our architects, as he is currently undertaking a massive project to link his island country to the mainland with a bridge that is without equal in this land. According to your client, there should be little to no danger, as the Wave Country does not possess a ninja village or military force of any kind and has been a peaceful sovereignty for many years. The most you possibly have to worry about are scattered bandit attacks, certainly nothing that you couldn't handle." The Hokage made a couple of notes on the mission scroll and looked towards his son's team. "Any questions?"

Kakashi looked at his charges and seeing no issues on their faces, outside of the disgust on Naruto's face and the questioning expressions on the faces of his other two students, he replied, "I think we're all set, sensei. When do we set out?"

"Take the night and pack for about two weeks. You can head out first thing tomorrow morning," the leader replied.

The gray-haired jōnin nodded and looked to his students. "It's late, and since you have never packed for a multiple week mission, take the rest of the day off. I can accompany our charge to the hotel he's been staying at for the past few days, and we'll meet at the village gate at 7:00 sharp tomorrow morning. Understood?" Seeing the affirmative nods of his team, he gestured to the slightly drunk elder gentleman who was leaning on the Hokage's desk for support and escorted him from the room. "Come with me, Tazuna, let's get you back to your hotel so you can rest up for your journey tomorrow."

As soon as the old man's hiccupping faded as the two made their way outdoors, Minato turned to his son and teammates while taking a quick glance at his cell phone to check the time, smiling at the text message that had come in an hour prior. "Well, by my estimate it's just about time to head home, and I have it on good authority that there will be a lovely meal of meatloaf and steamed vegetables waiting for us when we get back." Naruto and Sasuke's mouths were watering in anticipation; Kushina's meatloaf was known throughout the village as some of the best in the Fire Country. Minato smirked at them and looked at the lone female in the room. "Sakura, you're more than welcome to join us, Kushina always makes enough food for an army."

The pinkette looked surprised to have the invitation extended to her, and she stuttered, "A-A-Are you sure that's okay, Lord Hoka-" but she was interrupted by the person she was addressing holding up a hand in protest.

"As of right about…" and he checked his cell once again to confirm what he was about to say, "…now, my work day is done, so no stiff titles or anything, I'm just plain Minato, period." He started packing his things into the bag he took to work everyday rather quickly, wanting to get home fast.

"Yeah, just plain old Lord Hokage Dad, hero of the last two Great Ninja Wars, student of the all powerful Pervy Sage and teacher of the son of the legendary White Fang of the Hidden Leaf Village," Naruto said mockingly. He adopted the famous pose of the aforementioned Toad Sannin and imitated him, "_I am Jiraiya, master of the toad ninja arts and terror to women everywhere. You have nothing to fear from me but my student is basically a ninja god so you'd better watch out because I obviously know something or else he wouldn't be worth a crap!_"

For that, he received a knuckle to the top of his head. "Just for that, I'm telling your mother not to give you dessert," his father said good-naturedly.

"Good, more for me," Sasuke added stoically, earning a squawk of protest from the younger blond.

Sakura watched the family dynamic at work, something she had never really seen from the village leader, and was surprised at how human they all appeared. She eventually became aware of three sets of eyes looking at her, waiting for an answer. She scrambled for her own cell phone and said, "I-I would be honored, just let me call my parents and ok it with them." Minato smiled gently and nodded to her as she dialed her house for permission.

…xXx…

Two Uzumaki males, one Uchiha male, and one Haruno female (much to her surprise) leaned back in their chairs contently, having filled their stomachs up. Kushina nodded appreciatively at the minimal amount of food left over, a sign of her family's pleasure in her cooking mastery (something that she vehemently denied at every juncture).

"Mom you just need to admit it, you are the best cook in the entire Fire Country, period," her son sighed, "Ichiraku could even learn a thing or two from you."

"That's high praise, Auntie Kushina, Naruto conceding that you even beat out his nectar of the gods," Sasuke added.

"Lady Uzumaki, that has to be some of the best food I've ever eaten!" Sakura breathed in amazement, "I'm definitely going to have to sleep this off to get ready for the mission."

"Or work it off. Sit down, sweetheart, Naruto and Sasuke can get the dishes," Minato stopped his wife, who was rising to take the dirty dishes in to clean and happily sat back down. Though both looked to be about to complain, a somewhat stern glare from Minato and a deceptively cheerful grin from Kushina changed their minds quickly. Slowly, both rose, gathered the dishes on the table, and waddled their way into the kitchen. The Hokage and his redheaded bride turned their attention to the remaining member of Team 7 reclining at the table, who was somewhat intimidated by the attention she was receiving from two of the strongest shinobi in the entire village.

"So, Sakura, we know all about Naruto and Sasuke because we've taught them most of what they know, but we don't know much about you, outside of what I've seen on reports from the academy," Minato said, "You seem to be a smart young lady. Have I heard correctly that Iruka seems to think you'd be a good talent in genjutsu?"

"That's correct, sir," she replied timidly, "My parents haven't told me much about their ninja careers, and they said they wanted to hold off on educating me until my skills became apparent so they didn't force anything on me. My dad has told me that he used genjutsu to great effect during his time in active duty."

Minato nodded as memories came flooding back to him, and he looked at Kushina as the skills of Haruno Kizashi and Haruno Mebuki came to mind. "That's right, he and your mother were a terror together on the battlefield with genjutsu, weren't they?" he asked his wife.

"Yeah, didn't they hide all of their techniques by utilizing flower-based ninjutsu and then hiding their illusions behind those techniques?" Kushina added, "Enemies could never figure out if their minds were being played with or if they were being cut to ribbons until it was too late."

Both elder ninja nodded, "Oh yeah, the only thing that stopped them were your dad's hip injury and your mother becoming pregnant with you," Minato said factually.

Sakura was stunned; sure, she knew her parents were ninja and had both reached jōnin, but to be that skilled that the Hokage and his powerful wife praised their abilities? She was definitely going to have to find out further about this. "I never knew any of this. Like I said, they don't talk much about their careers, and they said they would teach me when I found my way," she said, more to herself than her friend's parents.

Minato chuckled, surprising the pink haired girl. "That sounds like old Kizashi. I'll talk to Kakashi about this. If you're as skilled at genjutsu as Iruka seems to think you are, I think we can get you set on your way. Soon enough your parents won't have any choice but to teach you all they know!"

Sakura was frankly stunned that the leader of the entire village was going out of his way to help her so much, but remembering her manners, she stammered out, "T-T-Thank you so much! I'll look forward to it!"

The blond leader threw an arm around his wife and drew her close, saying, "What kind of leader would I be if I didn't help out the citizens of the village?"

For that he received a punch to the gut that was none too soft and a snarky response of, "A pretty sucky leader, I'd say," and the three broke out into laughter, causing the dish boys to wonder what kind of conversation had been occurring in the living room.

…xXx…

The next day, Team 7 surprisingly got on the road on time, as Kakashi showed up at the gate with a few minutes to spare before the time they had agreed on to meet. They traveled all day and set up camp just over the halfway point of their journey, so the next morning, their intended destination of the Wave Country was decently close.

Tazuna had, of course, been extremely hung over, so the first day was somewhat tedious for the group of ninja. Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura alternated helping the old man walk, as he was barely in a state to be traveling. Luckily by the morning of the second day, he had sufficiently recovered, and Kakashi had made sure to prohibit alcohol to prevent the issue from recurring.

Now, the team and client were well on their way to the Wave Country, and a question that all of the ninja had in the back of their minds finally came out.

Sakura was the first to pose it, though Naruto and Sasuke had both been thinking about it for a few hours. "Kakashi-sensei, how much of a likelihood is it that we have to worry about any enemy ninjas?" she asked worriedly.

Kakashi's visible eye crinkled up as he smiled under his mask. "Since this is only a C-rank mission, it's highly unlikely. Probably the extent we will have to deal with is some rogue samurai or bandits, like sensei said a few days ago," he replied, "All of the C-rank missions that I have ever been involved in were overall rather safe and uneventful affairs." Unnoticed by anyone, behind the rest of the group, Tazuna grimaced and wiped some sweat from his forehead as they passed a puddle.

"And bandits aren't usually shinobi, correct?" Sakura pressed further.

"Bandits who boast ninja training are rare," Kakashi mused, "They often aren't called bandits if they have those abilities, they're just called missing ninja."

Once the group rounded a bend in the path, and their conversation had faded, two figures silently rose from the small pile of water that the Leaf ninja had passed. Adorned with forehead protectors from the Hidden Mist Village, their blue and black camouflage outfits were augmented by giant claws connecting the two ninjas with a barbed chain. With practiced stealth, one figure jumped onto the claw of the other and was tossed into the air over the forest. His silent descent landed him directly on the other side of Kakashi, surprising the group. The trailing chain wrapped around the silver-haired ninja as the second ninja landed through the force of his own throw, and the two rogues both whispered, "One little piggy." Yanking in opposing directions with their claw, the chain sliced the stunned jōnin to shreds.

The remainder of Team 7 and Tazuna gasped in horror and stared at what was left of their mission leader, and that moment of surprise allowed the two Hidden Mist ninja to quickly surround the genin. They raised their clawed appendages and whispered, "3 more little piggies!" as the chain quickly began to encircle the young ninja. Fortunately, Sasuke caught the ruse, followed closely by Naruto, and the two grabbed their female companion and dodged the jagged metal rope before it could claim them too. The young Uchiha threw a shuriken and drove the suspended chain into a tree. A kunai thrown by Naruto into the hole of the shuriken held it in place.

The two brothers quickly disconnected the chain connecting (and restraining) them and started to dash at the surprised kids, this time brandishing the clawed gauntlets on their hands, but Kakashi, seemingly unharmed, appeared behind the two brothers in mid-attack and disabled them with concurrent chops to the back of the neck.

"Well done, kids, nice work!" their leader said as he grabbed the unconscious Mist ninja by their shirts and threw them over by a tree, having used a Substitution Technique to escape their earlier attack.

As he tied the ninja to the tree, he turned briefly to his students and their client and said, "Give me just a second here," as he pulled up his headband, revealing the blood red Sharingan hidden below. He focused his attention back on the two assailants, and all three genin realized immediately that he was casting a genjutsu on the Hidden Mist rogues to claim information. A few seconds later, he replaced his headband and returned to the group. The gray-haired jōnin turned to Tazuna, who was nervously looking around as if he was expecting another attack, and asked, "Tazuna, I have a distinct feeling that this is more than a regular, run of the mill C-rank mission. Do you want to tell us something that might explain why those two ninja attacked us?" All three of his students were sure that he already had a general picture of what was going on from his genjutsu interrogation, but the reason that he asked was he wanted to hear the details from Tazuna's mouth.

Tazuna looked around some more and then started to explain slowly, "Yes…there is more to the mission, I'm afraid. Have you ever heard of Gatō?"

Kakashi's visible eye widened, and he asked, "You mean Gatō, the mastermind behind the marine transportation enterprise?"

Tazuna nodded. "Yes, that's the one. A couple of years ago, Gatō came to the Wave Country. He came under the pretense of business, but ever since he established himself there, he's taken all that we have, robbed us blind, reduced our country to a poverty stricken wasteland. Everyone has all but lost hope." Team 7's eyes widened in shock. Tazuna continued, though his voice began to rise in spirit slightly, "However, 3 years ago, I started building a bridge that would span from the Wave Country to the mainland. Once it's completed, our country could become prosperous again, but Gatō sends various assassins after me on a routine basis. That's why I hired you under the guise of a C-rank mission, because our country can't afford a B- or A-rank mission."

Kakashi let that entire speech soak in. After silence for a few moments, he said with a sigh, "Well, then, I guess there's only one thing to do...we'll have to continue to protect you, at least until we get to your home."

...xXx...

A couple miles away, in a denser and darker section of the same forest that the Leaf ninja were traversing at that very time, a tree house constructed around the largest tree in the area loomed through the gloom, hidden only by simple natural camouflage. Currently, a short man in a black suit entered the floating domicile, followed close behind by his two hired hands acting as bodyguards. As they entered the main living space of the structure, a tall man who was lazily slouching on a couch in the middle of the main room of the lofty home raised his head slightly and shifted his hand towards the enormous sword propped up against the armrest. While he had no shirt, he was wearing striped pants as well as camouflage leg and arm warmers. A teenager, in his late teens at an above average height, stood behind the man on the couch. He had spiky black hair, a light blue t-shirt, khaki shorts, the regular weapon holders, and a Hidden Mist headband. A hunter ninja mask was attached to his belt.

The man dressed in the well-tailored suit glared angrily at the two ninjas. "Zabuza, I expected better from your supposed 'Demon Brothers.' I just received word that they were subdued with little to no effort by the ninjas that the Hidden Leaf Village sent to protect that bridge builder. And I'm sure as hell not sparing my men to do what I paid you to do for me. So…do you have ANYTHING to say for yourself?" the short man furiously spat out.

The man on the couch grasped the long handle of his sword and casually swung it around so it was pointing directly away from him. Such was the length of the weapon that even at the distance that Zabuza was sitting from his visitors, the tip was only inches away from the short man's nose. "Gatō, there's nothing to worry about. You paid me to do a job, and I, Momochi Zabuza, will personally ensure that those bodyguards will be taken care of. I highly doubt that the Hidden Leaf Village would send any of their more powerful ninja to assist with protecting the bridge builder. They should have no reason to suspect our involvement," he drawled.

"You'd better, or else you're fired!" Gatō muttered as he shakily walked out of the room. His bodyguards shifted out after him, occasionally looking back in fear. Zabuza glared at their backs until they had left.

"What a loser. If not for the money, I would have killed that slug ages ago." He gestured to his younger compatriot, "Come on, Shiro, let's go see who these gnats are," he said as he got up and started to walk towards the back exit.

"Hai, Zabuza-sensei," Shiro said quietly, and followed his senior out the exit.

...xXx...

"Here we are, Tazuna," a man with a straw hat whispered shakily as the boat reached the shore. The traveling group had reached the coastline of the Fire Country, and until the bridge was fully completed, the only way to get to the island of the Wave Country was by boat. Luckily, it was a foggy afternoon, and in the shadow of the supports of the bridge, Tazuna's friend was able to take them swiftly and silently to the island shore.

Team 7 and their client climbed out of the boat, taking care to be aware of their surroundings. The bridge builder turned to the man and whispered, "Thank you very much, I should never have asked you to do this for me."

The man shook his head and whispered back, "No, it's okay. Just be careful," and he started to row back towards his home on the Fire Country side of the sea.

"Okay, we all need to be extra careful from here on out. I suspect Gatō will send out some more experienced assassins since those last two failed spectacularly on their mission. Be on the lookout for anyone and anything out of the ordinary," Kakashi explained as they walked along.

Not one second after he finished that statement, Naruto's extra sensitive ears picked up a rustling in the bush. Reacting quickly, he sent a kunai flying into the shrubbery where it quickly impacted with a tree trunk, square between the ears of a white-furred hare. "What the heck are you doing, Naruto?" Sakura hissed, "Do you want us to get caught?"

"I definitely heard something in there," the blond insisted, "There's someone hiding in those bushes!"

"Yeah, a cute little bunny, you numbskull!" and with that, she whacked Naruto over the top of his head, eliciting a squeal of protest, "Now come on, and don't freak us out like that again!" The assaulted genin grumbled but continued onward behind her and Tazuna. Sasuke saw that Kakashi continued to peer intently into the bushes for a few more moments before continuing along behind his students. "Is there something wrong, Kakashi?" he asked softly.

"No, it's nothing, let's keep moving," he replied simply as they slightly hurried their pace to catch up with the other three. The whole group was far out of earshot of the small 'poof' from where the rabbit had been hiding.

…xXx…

Shiro's eyes shot open as the same white hare reappeared in front of him and his teacher. In a low drawl, he said, "I counted four ninjas from the Hidden Leaf Village in addition to the old man. The leader was a tall jōnin with crazy gray hair and a mask, and I believe he was leading a genin squad. The girl had a red outfit and pink hair, one of the guys was in white and either dark blue or black, and the other guy had spiky blond hair and an orange and black jumpsuit."

"Thank you, Pyonsuke," the young man replied. The hare crossed his ears in a bow and disappeared with a 'poof.' He turned to the elder Hidden Mist rogue, who had an indiscernible look on his face, and asked, "Do you recognize any of those descriptions, sensei?"

"This might be more difficult than I thought," he murmured, "The description that Pyonsuke got of the leader sounds disturbingly close to that of Hatake Kakashi, and ever since the wars, spiky blond hair immediately brings the Yellow Flash to mind. You have to wonder if that kid isn't some relative of his, even possibly his son." He paused and leaned back against the tree he was perched in with his student in quiet contemplation. Finally, he glanced at Shiro and asked, "Do you think you can occupy the attention of the three genin? If you can do that, and if I can distract Hatake long enough, we might be able to create an opening for one of us to get a shot at the bridge builder."

"I'll do my best," was the simple reply that he received.

Zabuza nodded and clapped his protégé on the shoulder. "That's all I can ask of you. Now, let's get going and see if we can get the drop on them." Silently, the two fazed away from the tree branches into the forest.

…xXx…

The Hidden Leaf group continued onwards, but all three genin became aware of the sour look on Kakashi's face, and finally Sakura asked, "Is there something wrong, sensei? You look like you're going to be sick."

The jōnin shook his head, looking like he was confused about something. "I'm just thinking about that hare we saw a few miles back."

"Yeah, I've been thinking about it too…about how happy I am that Naruto's aim is terrible," the pink-haired female muttered.

"It's not my fault the stupid bunny sounded like a person moving through the bushes," the blond spluttered, "And what kind of hare has white fur in the middle of summer?"

"That's it!" the three genin looked at their teacher, who now sported a look that was an odd mix of sudden realization and horror, "Why would a hare have a white coat in the middle of the summer? The only way that could happen is if it was kept indoors or in a cold environment until very recently…"

Sasuke was also slowly catching on and added, "Which means someone had to be caring for it as a pet…"

"Aren't you the smart one?" a voice rang out from in the trees. Everyone tensed up at the new arrival as a slicing sound cutting through the air became audible.

With his sharp eyes, the young Uchiha was the first to spot the source. "Everyone, get down!" he shouted, grabbing Tazuna and pulling him down. Kakashi tackled Sakura and pulled her down as well, and Naruto fell on top of the bridge builder. A giant sword spun through the air mere seconds later, passing through the space that would have been occupied by the team's necks and chests, and stuck high into a tree a few yards away. Zabuza appeared standing on the sword with his back to Team 7, and Shiro stood on an adjacent branch.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Hatake Kakashi of the Sharingan. I admit, I was shocked when I found out you might be here. I never expected someone of your caliber to be on a mission like this," the rogue murmured, a bit of admiration present in his voice.

"Momochi Zabuza, the Demon of the Hidden Mist Village, what an honor. And you've gained a mini-me as well. How cute," Kakashi said dryly, and then turned to his students, "Stay back, this guy is on a completely different level than those two from earlier today." From the looks on their faces, they were not likely to make a move.

Zabuza chuckled, obviously not really caring what the Copy Ninja had to say. "Wrong, this is my apprentice, Shiro. He's been with me for many years, and I've taught him everything that I know. You'd be wise to not underestimate him." His eyes shifted to the elderly ward of the Hidden Leaf ninja. "Since I'm guessing you won't hand over the bridge builder, he's here to make sure no one interferes with our little skirmish," Zabuza said. Leaping off of his improvised standing spot, he wrenched his sword out of the tree on the way down and landed on the water, forming hand seals. "Allow me to start the fun with my specialty. Kirigakure no Jutsu (Hidden Mist Technique)!" he said in almost a whisper, raising one hand above his head and the other in front of his mouth in a sign. That was the last the bodyguard ninja saw of him, as a thick fog began to cover the battlefield, and Zabuza faded from sight, as did the younger Shiro.

Kakashi raised his headband, revealing the shining crimson Sharingan concealed underneath. Sasuke gasped in awe. "I can't wait to see him in action. I hope mine is unlocked soon…"

"Stand back, and protect Tazuna. Zabuza is a master of silent killing, so keep on your toes. I will take care of him," Kakashi snapped, and the three genin jumped back and surrounded Tazuna in a square formation, Naruto spawning a clone to serve as the fourth.

From seemingly everywhere around them, a dark chuckle began to reverberate. "There are eight targets: the throat, spinal cord, lungs, liver, jugular, subclavian, kidney, and heart. Which should I pick?"

Being in between both of her male teammates, they could both feel Sakura shivering in fear, and they also heard her whimper in fear, "Where did that come from?"

"From right behind you!" Zabuza hissed as he appeared in the middle of their formation, right between the genin and Tazuna. He swung his sword, the blunt edge luckily being the one to knock Tazuna and Sakura aside on the backswing, while the sharp edge clipped and dispelled the clone. Before he could complete the swing to decapitate Sasuke, Kakashi appeared, simultaneously thrusting a kunai into Zabuza's stomach and knocking the young Uchiha backwards out of harm. Naruto jumped over to stand guard over the bridge builder, helping his female teammate up in the process. Kakashi jammed the kunai further into the Mist ninja's abdomen, but water started leaking out of the wound the kunai created, and Zabuza burst suddenly into a spray of water.

A figure burst out of the mist from another direction and shouted triumphantly, "Nice try!" as the Copy Ninja was cleaved in half by a giant sword…and promptly burst into water. Zabuza's eyes widened in surprise as he screeched to a halt after controlling his swing. 'He copied my Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu (Water Clone Technique) in all this mist? The rumors must be true,' he thought, and then flinched as he felt cold steel against his throat.

"It's over, Zabuza," Kakashi stated from behind him, but interestingly, the rogue only chucked in response.

"Not quite," the rogue murmured, and Kakashi couldn't see the smirk forming on his face, "I'm no fool." The Copy Ninja's eyes widened as he realized what had happened, right as the Zabuza in front of him turned to water. Even knowing that he had been duped, he was unable to avoid taking a kick in the back. The Sharingan wielder was sent flying but did a backflip off of the ground and landed on the water of the nearby lake, breathing heavily.

"Bad move, my friend. Suirō no Jutsu (Water Prison Technique)!" Zabuza shouted, forming handseals as he appeared behind the jōnin. A sphere of water rose and surrounded Kakashi and one of the rogue's arms to the wrist, completely ensnaring the Copy Ninja.

'No, I thought I could regroup underwater! Now what do I do?' Kakashi thought as he tried to figure out how to get out.

As if he could sense what he was thinking, Zabuza sneered and said, "That was a serious miscalculation, my friend. Trying to escape to the water against one who is a master of water-based ninjutsu? I thought you were smarter than that." Shifting his head towards the shore where his younger companion was, he jerked the thumb on his free hand towards the Hidden Leaf genin. "Hey, Shiro, get down here and take care of those brats."

The invisible young man nodded and disappeared off of the branch, reappearing in front of Team 7 and Tazuna. Naruto and Sasuke both quickly created a Shadow Clone each that grabbed Tazuna and took him away to safety. Shiro watched him leave with a neutral expression on his face. "Don't make this any harder than it has to be. I don't want to hurt you. Just hand over the bridge builder."

"Like hell!" Naruto exclaimed, "Let's do this guys! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Technique)!" In a flash, the five identical blonds charged at their young opponent, ignoring Sakura's cries of worry and Sasuke urging him to stop. Shiro didn't even blink an eye because as soon as Naruto's small army drew close enough, he disappeared in a blur. All of the clones were destroyed instantly, and the original was sent flying backwards at his teammates, skidding to a halt in a pile of limbs at their feet. The young Mist rogue reappeared right where he had been standing previously, smoothing his hair back calmly. However, his wrists and ankles were now augmented by what appeared to be miniature tornadoes, making a steady humming sound. The young blond looked down and noticed his outfit now had a couple of small cuts around his midriff.

"This is my close combat specialty, Fūton: Shura Senpūken (Wind Style: Berserker Whirlwind Fist)," he said calmly, "The stopping power of a tornado in hand-to-hand combat is a near unstoppable force. I hope you're prepared to be blown away, so to speak."

Naruto had slowly gotten to his feet by now and just glared at the young man. Sasuke strolled over to him and muttered, "Let's get a plan together this time before we charge in, moron. Kakashi doesn't have an infinite air supply, so we need to figure out how to get him free, too." The blond coughed and looked the other way for a moment as Sakura walked over to join, and the three genin huddled together. Shiro watched them silently as they made their plans, slightly curious about what they had in store.

A few seconds later, they broke apart to face their opponent. Naruto created two clones before the three orange-clad teens charged towards their opponent, intent on continuing with close combat. Sakura and Sasuke hung back to observe their teammate at work. Seconds before engaging, all three blonds focused chakra into their hands, causing them to glow with a faint green color and swirl with a spiritual wind. Armed with those chakra gloves, they began their assault on the Hidden Mist rogue.

It soon became apparent that while Shiro was obviously fast enough to keep up with the barrage he was receiving, he couldn't defend himself from the sheer amount of blows that he was on the receiving end of. The three blonds also realized this at around the same time, and they intensified their attack. Shiro soon started to focus exclusively on defense because he simply couldn't keep up with three opponents who were in perfect sync with each other. However, forcing the Mist rogue into a defensive role was only playing straight into Shiro's hands.

At the precise moment that all three fighters reared back to prepare their next punch, the tall teen pulled his fists into his body. A wall of wind swirled to life around him as he shouted, "Fūton: Bakufūheki (Wind Style: Explosive Wind Wall)!" and shoved his arms out. The wind sphere suddenly exploded outwards, shattering both clones and once again sending the original flying backwards towards where Sakura was waiting.

Sasuke was no longer there, having moved up into the trees to obtain a better vantage point. As soon as Shiro blew Naruto away from him, the young Uchiha muttered, "Gotcha. Katon: Hiendan (Fire Style: Flying Flame Bullet)!" before spitting out a quickly moving fireball at the approaching wind barrier.

Shiro wasn't fooled at all and immediately cancelled out his first barricade to create a new one, exclaiming, "Suiton: Suijinheki (Water Release: Water Encampment Wall)!" The wind broke as fast as it appeared, and a wall of water condensed into being around the young man, drawing water around from both his sensei's earlier mist creation technique and the nearby lake. The flaming bullet slammed into the water wall, and while it didn't manage to penetrate it, it created a large cloud of steam that further obstructed the battlefield.

Realizing the opening he unintentionally created, Sasuke didn't waste any time, and he hurtled through the mist towards Kakashi. Naruto and Sakura joined him a second later as they charged towards the lake.

As they neared the shoreline, Zabuza came into view, and all three genin took note that he didn't appear to be all that worried. Unluckily for them, the reason soon became apparent to them. As they all launched from the shoreline and sailed through the air towards their trapped sensei and his captor, Shiro fazed into existence in front of them. Hurriedly, he shoved his hands out in front of him in a cupped arrangement and shouted, "Fūton: Tatsumaki Bakutoppa (Wind Style: Tornado Explosive Breakthrough)!" Being in midair, the genin were defenseless against the attack, and the concussive force of a tornado erupted from the young ninja's hands and blasted them back towards the forest.

Sasuke hit the ground past the shoreline roughly but managed to get back on his feet with a quick leap off of the ground, as did Sakura, but Naruto landed more on the sandy shore and skidded along the ground. Instead of righting himself, he dug something out of his backpack and chucked it towards his male teammate, shouting, "Sasuke, catch!" The young Uchiha caught it in the air and unfolded it, revealing a fūma shuriken. Making a quick movement with his arm, he reared back and launched it at the elder rogue. At the same time, twenty Naruto clones appeared from the forest and charged at Shiro from all angles, keeping him occupied.

The shuriken homed in on Zabuza, who still didn't look worried. "Is this the best your students can do, Kakashi?" he asked, chuckling, "Childs play." He caught the first shuriken, only to open his eyes in horror as a second one appeared in the shadow of the first. "Shit…Kage Shuriken no Jutsu (Shadow Shuriken Technique)!" he hissed in recognition before barely leaping over the second one. He breathed a sigh of relief as he muttered, "I didn't expect your genin to be so crafty, Kakashi…"

"Oh yeah? Then watch this!" a voice behind him. Zabuza whirled around in horror and saw that the 'shuriken' was actually Naruto, who had dispersed the Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Technique) he had performed on himself. The hyperactive blond pulled out a kunai and launched it at the Hidden Mist rogue. Zabuza had nowhere to go, as the kunai was aimed right at his head, and he finally pulled the arm within the water prison free to avoid the kunai. However, he couldn't avoid a small cut on his cheek, and that was just enough to make him mad. Naruto hit the water and was quickly back afloat, but a voice above him stopped him in his tracks.

"You're dead, brat. Dead." The blond looked up, frozen stiff in fright from not being able to maneuver easily in the water, as Zabuza swung downwards with the shuriken he had caught earlier. Luckily, though, it was blocked by the forearm protector of a freed and drenched Kakashi.

"I appreciate the help, Naruto. Excellent coordination," he panted heavily, "However, your teammates need you more than I do. That boy is powerful." The blond nodded and ducked back under water, swimming towards the shore.

…xXx…

Meanwhile, Sasuke and Sakura were having a rough time keeping away from Shiro, who had come back into the fight after he staved off the small army of clones Naruto had produced. The young man had reactivated his tornado fists, and while he appeared to be fatiguing a little, he was still outmaneuvering both the young Uchiha in close combat and the pink-haired teen at long range sniping. All three were running low on chakra. Shiro had put out a lot using all different kinds of techniques, Sakura had low reserves to begin with and activating the explosive tags she was using on her kunai was costly, and Sasuke had used most of his own on Katon techniques in a failed attempt to take advantage of Shiro's continued use of Fūton techniques.

Currently, the young Uchiha was back resting for a moment, while Sakura was attempting to do something in close range taijutsu, using two kunai as extensions of her hands. All of the jabs she sent anywhere near his arms were deflected by the tornados around Shiro's wrists, acting a lot like shields as well, and her attempts to attack his legs were met with the same result.

She was soon relieved, however, as Naruto barreled into the scene from the air, shouting loudly, "Fūton: Reppūken (Wind Style: Gale Fist)!" His hands, once more covered with dense wind nature chakra, collided with Shiro's fists in a loud shockwave. Sakura barely noticed him in time and jumped back right as the two teen boys collided to join Sasuke in taking a breather.

Both wind users quickly locked fists in an attempt to gain the upper hand on the other. Neither was able to for a minute or two, until Shiro noticed a red coloration leaking into the chakra around Naruto's wrists. 'What is that?' he wondered mentally. He looked up at his foe's eyes and saw that their normal blue had darkened to a demonic red, and the irises had narrowed into slits. 'Who is he?' he thought as he began to worry a little. He was even more surprised as he began to be pushed backwards. 'What?' he thought in shock, and he tried to pump more chakra into his arms, but he was met with a twinge of pain from overexerting his chakra supply.

The attention of all four young adults shifted simultaneously to the lake as the sound of crashing water reverberated through the area. Shiro suddenly said, "Well, it appears it is time for me to take my leave." He suddenly whipped out his legs and swept Naruto's own before wrenching his hands free. He made a quick sign and disappeared in a gust of wind.

...xXx...

Back at the lake, Kakashi had quickly gained the upper hand in the battle and had pinned the swordsman to a nearby tree. "Damn you to hell!" Zabuza screamed as the kunai dug into his arms and legs.

The Copy Ninja appeared on a branch above him and said in a condescending tone, "Zabuza, I can foresee your fate, and your fate is death!"

The Hidden Mist rogue growled through his pain and snapped back, "I'll get you for this…" but was silenced by the two senbon needles that sliced through his neck. He fell limp against the tree and didn't say another word.

Team 7 and Tazuna arrived in time to see a Hidden Mist hunter ninja throw the senbon that had penetrated the rogue's neck. The masked hunter jumped down and grabbed Zabuza's lifeless body, removing the kunai pinning him to the tree and throwing back to Kakashi. "I'll take it from here. Thank you for weakening him!" the hunter ninja said in a sweet tone.

'She's a girl,' Kakashi thought, but he couldn't elaborate, because the masked ninja quickly fazed away with the body. 'But still, something's not right about this...' Before he could think of anything else, he fainted because of chakra depletion.

...xXx...

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned!

**Review Responses:**

**justsomerealguy**: I'm going to refrain from answering the Itachi question, and I've also refrained from stating explicitly whether or not Sasuke is actually living with Naruto, simply because I haven't made up my mind either. At this point, I've implied that he eats meals there and lives elsewhere on his own, but I think I'll just end up making him a permanent resident there for simplicity's sake. I honestly don't like to bash. I feel that being creative in how I create a character's demise is frankly much more satisfying if I don't like them. I'd like to think that having parents would instill a little more sense into Naruto, and kudos if you can catch who he is interested in (should be pretty obvious). Thanks!

**Crush48**: This is the type of criticism I like, constructive and non-explosive, so first of all thank you for that. The way I've imagined this story in comparison to the real deal is that graduating from the academy is similar to graduating from high school, an end to mandatory education and a beginning to an individualized career path. You're right in that I didn't want everyone to be too old, so after the time skip, the main characters will be 20/21, around the time young people start to gain their way and have an idea of what they want to do in their lives. Most importantly, having teenagers and young adults as opposed to 12-15 year olds makes creating realistic romances and courtships a heck of a lot easier, which is honestly the reason why I did it. Age really won't come into play all that much, and I fully expect that it will become a null point rather quickly. Age comparisons will be more common that the stating of actual numbers, I just wanted to start with a baseline that I could use to compare everyone else to. I really appreciate your input though, and I hope this explained it better! I'll direct you to justsomerealguy's questions since they're mostly the same as the ones you ended your review with. Thanks!

**Rose Tiger**: Thanks!


	4. (Land of Waves 2) Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**(Land of Waves) Chapter 4 – The Demon of the Hidden Mist Lives! Hurry, Naruto!**

The next morning, Kakashi lay covered by a sheet on a futon inside the house of Tazuna and his family, looking more than slightly uncomfortable with the predicament he put himself in. Tsunami, the bridge builder's daughter, was standing over him, fussing over him, even though he kept insisting that he wasn't injured, just tired. Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke were all lounging on the floor in various places around the room in light discussion. Tazuna was in the restroom, ridding himself of the hangover that had come on after he had gone on a bender the previous night.

"Really, sensei, did you have to exhaust yourself like this?" the woman asked testily, "I thought you ninja were hardier than this."

"Yeah, well, the Sharingan does that to a person," Kakashi said sheepishly, taking note of Sasuke's curiosity, "If I had the choice, I wouldn't use it, but that man left me with no other option."

"I remember hearing from my father that using the Sharingan could take its toll on the body, but you only used it for a few minutes," the young Uchiha noted in curiosity.

To answer his question, Kakashi sat up slowly and lifted his headband to reveal his hidden left eye, which was currently shut. In all the excitement of the previous day, none of the genin had noticed the thin scar that ran vertical across the center of his eyelid. "As you can see, this isn't my original left eye," he explained, "The one I have now is permanently stuck in an activated state, so not only can I not stop the chakra flow into it, my body isn't optimized to handle the stress, so it sucks my energy a lot faster than it would in an Uchiha who can activate and deactivate it at will." Sasuke nodded thoughtfully as his teacher replaced his headband over his left eye.

He looked around the room at his other students and noticed his blond student looking quite puzzled. Since he had uncharacteristically not said anything or listened to the conversation, he asked, "Naruto, is everything alright?"

Startled, the young blond looked up and said, "Oh yeah. It's just…that hunter ninja that came in during the battle. She was so creepy, you know, and she killed Zabuza so easily when you had to do everything in your power to win."

Kakashi nodded and explained, "Yes, hunter ninja are assigned to destroy the bodies of prominent shinobi after death so the secrets of their techniques sealed within their bodies can never be used again. It's understandable why you would...think...so..." His visible eye widened when he thought about what he had just said.

"Sensei, what's wrong?" Sakura asked worriedly.

"It's that Zabuza might not be dead yet!" the silver-haired man said grimly.

Naruto's eyes widened. "What makes you say that?" he inquired.

The masked man closed his eyes in thought for a moment and then said, "Think for a moment of what that hunter used to 'kill' Zabuza, and it will make way too much sense."

"She used senbon, what about...them?" Sasuke asked, and then he too realized what happened. Sakura gasped in horror as it hit her as well.

"Senbon can induce a deathlike trance when they hit the human body in just the right places," Kakashi said, "and the hunter chose to transport the body rather than destroy it on scene, like they are taught to. The only thing that makes any sense is that the hunter isn't really a hunter from the Hidden Mist, and Zabuza is still alive." Noting the shocked looks on the faces of his team, he continued, "I suspect he'll be at full power again and in position to attack again within the week, so we'll have to train to get ready for him."

_**A few hours earlier**_

The female hunter teleported into a large clearing a couple of miles from the battle and laid Zabuza down on the ground. Before she started working on the rogue's body, she took off her mask and pulled out her bun of long, black hair, freeing herself from the restraints of her guise. She pulled out a kit from a pouch on her belt and unrolled it, revealing a variety of surgical tools. After some deliberation, she selected some scissors, and moved towards Zabuza.

"I need to drain the blood out of his mouth and throat, and then I can safely take out the senbon," she said to herself as she was preparing to cut off Zabuza's cloth mask. She never got the chance to proceed further as his hand shot up and stopped her own from coming any closer.

"I can do it perfectly fine myself!" the rogue growled as he ripped away the bandages. Haku frowned at him as he carelessly yanked out the senbon that put him into the trance and spit out a mouthful of blood.

"Zabuza-sensei, please, don't pull those out any which way," the fake hunter pleaded quietly but forcefully.

"Yeah, whatever. You have the skill of a butcher, you know that?" His female student shook her head in disbelief but accepted the needles that he offered. The sound of roaring wind floated to their ears, and both of them looked towards the direction from which they had came from to see who the new arrival was. "And besides, your brother is back. Go make sure he's okay. I'm fine," Zabuza grumbled as he stretched his weak body. The young woman stood up as Shiro jumped down from the tree and deactivated his Shura Senpūken, panting slightly.

"Wow, brother, it's been a long time since I've seen you use that technique," Haku commented. The spiky haired teen just silently stared at his sister and then looked to his wounded mentor.

"I couldn't help it. Those genin were surprisingly powerful. The girl wasn't all that interesting, but I could tell she had some brains. The dark haired boy was decently strong, but he irritated me more than anything with all the Katon techniques he kept using." He winced as he thought of the third genin he fought. "The blond, though…he was tough. It's almost like he had a second pool of chakra he was drawing from. He was able to create multiple Shadow Clones without any effort whatsoever and then keep on fighting with no effort at all. That's why I had to resort to my more advanced techniques," the young man said quietly. Zabuza slowly pulled himself up so he was sitting up on the ground.

"Okay, listen up, you two. There's no room for error. Not only do they have one of the Hidden Leaf's most talented jōnin on their team, they also have a Uchiha and the son of the current Hokage," the elder man stated grimly, "We cannot afford to take them lightly."

That tidbit of information caused the siblings' eyebrows to rise slightly. "That blond is the son of the Hokage?" Shiro said incredulously, "He has no strategy whatsoever except to make a ton of clones and charge in."

"There's not a doubt in my mind. He's got the looks of Namikaze Minato and the gigantic pool of Fūton chakra of Uzumaki Kushina. I'd be shocked if that isn't who he is," the elder rogue stated.

"It makes sense if you think about it." Shiro glared at his sister, who continued, "He hides his real abilities behind a veil of idiocy. He spawns a bunch of clones to fight while he engages behind them with more specialized ninjutsu. Remember, he managed to trick Zabuza-sensei into disengaging his Suirō no Jutsu," Haku reminded him, "And he uses Fūton chakra, just like you." Her brother just glared at her, and she giggled. Their teacher rolled his eyes at how juvenile his two charges were acting.

"Shut it, you two. Let's get going before I pass out," he grumbled. His smirking female student and miffed male student wrapped an arm each around their shoulders, and the three disappeared into the forest.

_**Present time**_

"Okay, we'll be splitting into two groups," Kakashi said to his three genin as he leaned on some crutches. The four were out in the forest behind Tazuna's home the next day because the gray haired jōnin was still worried about their chances in a fight against Zabuza and now two of his underlings.

All three exchanged some questioning looks; what point was there to splitting up if there was only one teacher. They were quickly answered as their teacher suddenly split in two courtesy of the creation of a single Shadow Clone, complete with crutch. Sasuke and Naruto, both realizing the potential harm, were about to pipe up and say something when both copies of their sensei held up a silencing hand. "Relax, you two. One Shadow Clone won't kill me since I've had a good night's sleep, but since half of this will involve some extensive chakra exertion, I'll leave the clone with Sakura and go with Sasuke and Naruto so I won't need to keep making more clones," he explained, "Sound good?" All three genin nodded excitedly, so the clone limped over to Sakura, while the real Kakashi pointed off deeper in the woods for the male training session.

As the three males disappeared into the forest, the clone turned to Sakura and said, "So, I hear from Minato-sensei that you have some interest into really learning some genjutsu, like your father is well known for," he drawled, noting that his only female student's eyes lit up as he said that.

"I would love to!" she blurted quickly, blushing as she caught herself and spoke slower, "I'm somewhat regretting now not taking more classes in genjutsu when we were at the academy. I tried to take as many different types of classes as possible, so I know a lot of different kinds of skills but I don't have any particular specialty."

The clone was nodding as he listened to the explanation, and after she was done he said, "We're going to see what we can do about that. Your first lesson has actually already started." He chuckled at seeing her eyes widen, "Part of becoming more advanced in the arts of genjutsu is being able to sense when you are under an illusion, no matter how strong or subtle the technique is."

"But…I don't sense anything, sensei," Sakura replied, though she looked to be questioning herself even as she said that.

"That's part of the test," he replied gently, "While I am by no means an expert at genjutsu, having this Sharingan makes weaving illusions much easier, and I'm able to shield my techniques from the casual observer. I have actually cast three generic illusions of various intensities on you, and it is up to you to sense and break free of them." Sakura nodded in confirmation. "You'll know that you've broken all three when you can see a scroll that I placed around here."

"A scroll?" the pinkette asked curiously.

"I stopped by the technique repository near the village offices and picked up a scroll of some of your father's more basic illusions," clone-Kakashi replied, noting her face light up once more, "We can start with those once you figure your way past my techniques."

"Am I allowed to ask for help or talk my way through it?" Sakura asked. When she saw her teacher tilt his head in confirmation, she immediately started muttering, "I remember in the elementary genjutsu class I took at the academy that if the afflicted ninja is not a sensor-type shinobi, the first thing you're supposed to look for is something out of the ordinary, something that isn't what it appears…" she trailed off as she began to wander around the clearing. Kakashi's clone remained silent and merely observed his student as she began to slowly piece together her surroundings. She took some experimental jabs at trees, some bushes, and even walked over to the clone of her teacher and confirmed that he was a tangible figure, causing the clone to chuckle slightly.

Sakura suddenly paused and stared at the sky, where the sun was about halfway up the sky from due east. Her eyes widened in recognition, and she whipped out her cell phone to check the time. Finding the answer she desired, she said, "It's not mid morning, sensei."

"Good job, that's the first and weakest of the illusions," the clone replied proudly, "Now, the next question is how to dispel it. Think about what the genjutsu did to your senses and what had to be affected for it to work."

Sakura paused in thought, her cell phone still in hand. "Well…it seems to be a somewhat weak illusion, as it didn't affect my phone at all. My sense of time wasn't affected all that much either because it still feels like mid afternoon, so it's strictly a visual illusion, but a broad one that shields the true sky from showing. As for how to dispel it, a burst of chakra should do the trick, since the illusion is wide spread but not that strong." She clapped her hands together and released a small wave of chakra, and almost immediately she was able to see the sun reset itself to the correct position.

"Excellent work, Sakura," Kakashi's clone said, clapping in appreciation, "Now, let's move on to the next one." The pinkette nodded and closed her eyes, spreading her senses as she tried to find the next illusion…

_**Naruto and Sasuke's Group**_

After the three males had made their way decently deep into the forest, they stopped in a small cleaning surrounded by towering trees. Kakashi limped over to a tree and sat down, and his two students followed him over. The jōnin looked up to them and said, "Before we get started on the actual lesson, I want to get a better idea of what my team is capable of. I didn't bring any techniques to learn, nor do I want you to bother with that for the time being. There's simply not enough time to learn a new technique and have any use for it in battle, and I also believe you two have a nice pool of moves at your disposal."

"So what's the plan, sensei?" Naruto asked curiously.

"We'll just start with a brief overview of what each of you know. There's no need to go too in depth, just some of your self-perceived strengths and weaknesses," Kakashi explained, "Sasuke, let's start with you, since I have a general idea of what Naruto's capable of from being around his parents my whole life."

The young Uchiha nodded and said, "Well, I have an affinity for Katon techniques, as you can probably tell. That comes with being a member of the Uchiha clan, so I was taught from a young age to be proficient in those techniques. For the time being, I don't know much about genjutsu because my father always told me when I was a child that it is much easier to acclimate your senses to the usage of illusions after the awakening of the Sharingan. My taijutsu is probably above average, as I can usually beat Naruto in a one-on-one fight if we don't use ninjutsu and he doesn't use the Kyūbi's chakra. Is that what you were looking for?"

Kakashi nodded, "That's perfect, just what I was looking for. Your turn, Naruto."

"Similarly to Sasuke, I have a decent grasp on my elemental affinity, Fūton techniques, but we both are only educated in basic techniques of each element. I do have somewhat of an upper hand on him when it comes to genjutsu just because he can break me out of anything I might get stuck in. I don't have any actual techniques yet, but Kurama said that he'd be helping me mix in some of his demonic illusions as I get older. My taijutsu skills aren't that great, but I make up for it with sheer numbers of Shadow Clones," he stated, and then he smirked as he added, "I'm probably stronger than Sasuke at the moment, even though he won't admit it." For that, he received a cuff on the head.

Amused, Kakashi said in reply, "Who's better than who is irrelevant when I can beat both of you quite soundly without any help." They both at least had the decency to look ashamed, and he continued, "It looks like ninjutsu is off to a good start, and genjutsu will come along when the time's right, so the main issue now is to get your taijutsu up to speed. And I think we all know what the best way to do that is, right?"

"Oh yeah," Naruto responded almost instantly, "Kick Sasuke's butt over and over and over again." Another snarky comment, another slap over the head.

The gray haired jōnin shook his head at his hyperactive student. "Well, it's more like you'll be kicking each other's butt over and over and over again." He sweated when he saw the overly excited looks that appeared on both of his students' faces. "Calm down, you too. Just some brisk sparring, that's all. For the sake of learning, I'm going to impose some restrictions on Naruto, since he seems to be the wild card here." He ignored the spluttering that erupted from the blond. "No Kyūbi cloak for you, and only one Shadow Clone. I think that will both make the fight much more fair and allow Naruto to gain some extra experience to get him up to Sasuke's level of taijutsu proficiency. Understand?" Both boys nodded. "Alright then, get going, but try to stay where I can see you." As soon as the last word left his mouth, there were suddenly two Uzumakis, and they both charged at Sasuke, who fell into a defensive position.

...xXx...

Naruto and Sasuke trudged into Tazuna's house, exhausted but extremely satisfied from their afternoon-long workout, followed closely by a limping Kakashi. Sakura had already returned and was helping Tsunami with dinner. She looked up and saw the two young men stumble into the living room and sink into the couch and asked, "Good grief, what did you two do all day?"

Too exhausted to say too much, they simply pointed at each other and said, "I beat him up." The pinkette shook her head in disbelief and went back to helping their host's daughter.

Her teacher made his way into the kitchen and plopped into a chair. Propping his crutch on the table, he elaborated further, "I decided that they would be better suited to get their taijutsu skills improved, since they seem to have a healthy pool of ninjutsu to draw from." Sensing her question, he continued, "I know you might be wondering why I didn't go into genjutsu with either of them, and they both have excellent reasons why there's no need to worry about it for the time being. Naruto has his tenant, and Sasuke's Sharingan is going to awaken very soon."

He then focused his attention from the wonderful smells wafting through the air to his female student, "You did quite well today. I honestly wasn't expecting you to bust through all of my illusions in just one day. I figured it would take you at least two." Sakura flushed at the praise being lavished on her as her sensei continued, "Don't worry about looking at the scroll for tonight. We can start on that tomorrow morning, and in the afternoon, you can go with Tazuna as his bodyguard." Even though he said that, he knew she would start looking at her father's techniques as soon as dinner was completed.

An hour or two later, dinner was served, and the two male genin had recovered enough to make their way to the table, tempted by the offer of a filling meal. As they ate, Naruto began to notice that Tsunami's only son, Inari, was paying a lot of attention to the torn picture hanging on the wall near the table, and his curiosity was piqued. After everyone had finished eating, and they were just sitting around in light conversation, the blond piped up and asked Tazuna about the picture, pointing at it, "Tazuna, who is that picture of? I noticed Inari looking at it a couple of times during lunch."

Immediately, all of the non-ninja tensed up, and Naruto sensed that he might have went somewhere he shouldn't have. Tazuna shifted uncomfortably and said quietly, "The torn part is where Inari's father was. He was a truly wonderful man, and I couldn't have asked for a better son-in-law. People around here loved him, and he was seen as a hero and a truly bright light in the darkness of the Wave Country brought on by Gatō. Even though we lived under that slumlord's oppression, Kaiza kept our hopes alive. That is…until Gatō executed him under false pretenses of treason and conspiracy. This country hasn't been the same since" Tazuna choked up and said no more, Tsunami's eyes began to water, and Inari had long since dashed from the room to who knows where. The ninja were stunned by the story and couldn't really say anything else.

...xXx...

After dinner later that night, once Tazuna's family had settled down a little from the reopening of old wounds, and Naruto and Sasuke had retreated to their rooms, Sakura was left alone with Kakashi at the dinner table. "Kakashi-sensei, do you mind if I ask you a question?" she asked tentatively.

He smiled at her, his visible eye crinkling up in evidence of that, and responded, "Anytime, Sakura, what is it?"

"It's just…" she hesitated to try to find the right words, "I really wasn't much use when me and Sasuke and Naruto were battling Zabuza's apprentice, and I'm worried that I'm not much use when they have so much ability and I just have book smarts." Her face was crestfallen by the time her voice had fallen off into silence.

Kakashi was somewhat confused by her tone, and he asked, "Why would you say that? From what I could see and hear, you were keeping his attention occupied, and against an opponent of that caliber, that's what I would like to see out of you."

Sakura didn't look convinced. "I guess, but I couldn't actually get any strikes in on him. I backed off whenever Naruto or Sasuke got an opening because they could do a lot more damage," she said dejectedly.

"I want you to stop that right now," Kakashi barked, and then in a somewhat calmer tone, continued, "Your problem isn't that you aren't skilled enough, but rather that you have a basic mastery of a wide set of skills but no specialty or direction. That's what we're working to achieve with the genjutsu training we did today." His tone shifted as he chuckled a little. "And judging by how well you did today, I think you'll be just fine. Now, we probably need to go to bed soon. I'm looking forward to seeing how your father's techniques do in your hands." Sakura, looking much less discouraged, nodded and helped her teacher up, and the two of them departed for their respective bedrooms.

...xXx...

The next few days proceeded in a similar fashion to that first one. After breakfast, Team 7 would head out into the forest and split up for training. Sakura and one of Kakashi's clones would work on some of the elementary genjutsu in the scroll of Haruno Kizashi's scroll, trying to wrap her head around the intricacies of the illusions that her father had created and honed. As the week grew late, her skill in disrupting illusions cast upon both her and the environment was solidified. Included in that was a heightened awareness of her surroundings and when her chakra was being disrupted by outside sources.

Her father's techniques were proving to be slightly more difficult, but the one silver lining was that they all built off of each other. Her father was a true expert in weaving illusions that confused the senses. None were offensive based but rather more for a support role. There were techniques that targeted the senses and individuals, ones that blanketed an area, even ones that could transfer through physical contact. She couldn't wait to get home and learn more about them from her father.

She spent her mornings working on genjutsu with one of Kakashi's clones, but her afternoons were actually spent on the bridge with Tazuna, mostly as a spare set of eyes. Naruto and Sasuke had similar exercises every day under the guidance of the real jōnin; basically, it was a 2-on-1 spar, with the blond spawning a clone and working out against the young Uchiha. Naruto progressed rapidly throughout the entire week thanks to the extra experience from using clones, and Sasuke's reflexes vastly improved.

As the week waned, Naruto and Sasuke's duels caused a lot of exhaustion, but more so on Naruto's part due to the overflow of information from the extra clone being used to spar with Sasuke. That is why four days after the start of the team training, Naruto was rudely awakened early in the morning by the clattering of dishes in the kitchen.

"…wha…what? What time is it?" he mumbled incoherently.

The sound of footsteps drew his eyes to the door as Tsunami poked her head into the living room. "Oh, Naruto, you're awake," she said happily, "Kakashi-sensei said for you to relax today since you overexerted yourself yesterday while training. They went on ahead with Father to the bridge."

Naruto, suddenly energized, looked around and started to get prepared extremely fast. "Aw man, they left without me!" he pouted. Tsunami shook her head in amusement and went back to washing dishes with Inari. The blond emerged from the living room, dashed through the kitchen, shouted a quick "Thank you," and ran out the door. He emerged into the backyard behind the house and leapt up into the forest, using tree branches to cover a lot of ground quickly.

A few minutes later found him nearly halfway to the bridge when he noticed something…odd that caught his eye deep within in the woods. 'What's that? I'd better take a peek,' Naruto thought, and he veered off his path to check it out.

…xXx…

Meanwhile, when the rest of Team 7 and Tazuna had arrived at the bridge slightly prior, they were shocked to discover the bridge builder's workers laid half-dead all over the bridge. "What the hell happened here?" the elder man shouted as he ran over to one of the workers to check on him.

"They came without warning...watch out…" the man said right before he fainted. A quick check by the three ninja yielded similar results with the other workers. As they got up to move further towards the middle of the bridge, a thick mist started to roll in.

"Oh no, they're here!" Kakashi muttered in horror. Sakura's face went white, and she closed her eyes as she clapped her hands together and started murmuring feverishly. Sasuke didn't react but rather kept his eyes trained on the dense fog in front of him.

"Well, well, well. Long time, no see, Copy Ninja," a voice reverberated through the mist. "I was hoping to run into you again. Our last night felt somewhat truncated." A slight pause, and then the voice echoed once more, still sounding like it was all around them, "I must thank you for bringing Tazuna to me. This makes my job much easier. And my students have been itching for a fight with your genin squad." Another pause, and the voice now sounded surprised, "But I don't see the blond…I do hope he shows up." The Hidden Leaf ninja arranged themselves around Tazuna as tightly as possible, though they were alert to mind all angles. "Feh, you can't even keep yourselves from shivering in fear. The girl is talking to herself, and the Uchiha looks like he's about to have a seizure..." Suddenly, five Zabuzas appeared around Kakashi, Sakura, Sasuke, and Tazuna, all in mid swing with their giant swords.

"No, I'm shaking with excitement, that's all!" Sasuke muttered with a smirk. He disappeared with a blur, and the Zabuzas surrounding him dispersed into water. The dark haired genin reappeared in the middle of the puddle of water with two kunai in his hands, peering into the gloom.

The mist thinned out a little, and Zabuza walked out of the mist, flanked by both of his unmasked students. "Well, it seems that my Water Clones can't fool you any more," the elder rogue noted with some amount of disappointment. "That's unfortunate. Shiro, Haku, go take the two brats while I deal with Kakashi."

The two younger fake hunters nodded and moved forward, only to each be rocked back by invisible blows to the face. Zabuza's eyes narrowed slightly, and he peered at his opponents, who hadn't moved one inch and appeared as shocked as he was. "What's going on here?" he murmured, glancing back to see his students picking themselves up. A slight sound back in the direction of his opponents caused him to whip his head back around towards them, only to receive an elbow to the back of the head. Snarling, he whipped his head around to see his own students on him, releasing punches towards him. A quick flicker of his eyes told him what he needed to know. Reacting quickly, a sweep of his leg knocked the two back, and he quickly brought his hands up and shouted, "Release!"

His two "students" who had attacked him shimmered away, revealing Sakura quickly picking herself off the ground to join her teammate in facing his actual protégés who were themselves just getting off the ground from the invisible punches they had received. "I see…the pink haired one used my mist against me," Zabuza whispered, impressed despite himself, "Used it to hide both herself and her teammate while the ones by the bridge builder were just illusions so they could get Shiro and Haku away. Then, she hid them under an illusion and disguised herself as both of them to try to get a cheap shot on me." Looking up to Kakashi, who had moved to face him away from a now defenseless Tazuna, his voice rose as he said, "Your students are sneaky little twerps, you know that?"

"I taught them well, then," he replied lazily, "Now then, shall we get started?"

"Yes, let's," the rogue replied, and both jōnin disappeared into the mist.

...xXx...

"That was a cheap trick, Uchiha," Shiro growled as he finally stumbled to his feet and helped his sister to hers as well, wiping the blood from his lip.

"I had absolutely nothing to do with it," Sasuke drawled, "It was all my teammate here. She's the only one that can use genjutsu of the three of us." His praise elicited a blush on the pinkette's face.

"Well, aren't you special?" the male rogue sneered sarcastically. He formed some hand signs and then whispered, "I'm done playing around. Fūton: Shura Senpūken." Once more, tornadoes roared to life around Shiro's ankles and wrists.

Sasuke glared at the tornadoes and asked, "Am I supposed to be afraid of that?"

His opponent's face remained stoic as he replied, "It's not you who should be afraid," before he disappeared from sight.

'Where'd he go?' Sasuke thought, looking around. A gust of wind rushing by his face elicited a quick reaction into a defensive position. As the gale swept past him, the Uchiha boy realized he wasn't the real target and shot after it. He didn't stand much of a chance of catching it and could only watch as Shiro buried his fist into the gut of Tazuna…who promptly disappeared and was replaced by his sister, who had been forced to erect a pane of ice to prevent serious harm.

The spiky haired young man's eyes widened as the scene in front of him shifted once more, revealing that everyone minus his sister were actually behind him. Tazuna was still near the Wave Country side of the bridge, but with Sakura in front of him as a guard. The clash between Kakashi and Zabuza was slightly closer, with the only evidence being the sounds of clanging metal, and Sasuke was standing a couple of feet behind his back, with a look not of fear but of confidence.

"Brother, please don't get worked up," Haku pleaded, "Let's think about this carefully. Let's not get fancy. We have a two on one advantage here. Let's keep him occupied until Zabuza-sensei can take care of the Copy Ninja." Shiro nodded as he took a few breaths to calm down, and then they both turned to face Sasuke, who had readied himself into a battle stance.

The three ninja stared each other down for a few moments, waiting to see who would make the first move. That pleasure would go to the twins, as they disappeared from sight. The young Uchiha quickly pulled out two kunai to use as defense and kept his eyes sharp as the wind picked up around him. He tried to concentrate on where they would be coming from, but he wasn't expecting a full on charge, and he realized too late that they were coming at him head on. He attempted to square himself, but there was no need as an orange blur phased in and blocked both siblings.

"Need some help, Sasuke?" Naruto asked as he held Shiro and Haku back.

His friend shook his head in wonder, smirked, and said, "Took you long enough, you idiot."

...xXx...

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! I'm going to try to shorten chapters to around 5000 words to get these guys out on a more consistent basis. After the next chapter, I will be out of templates from my old story, so the chapters will slow a lot, just for fair warning.

**Guest:** While I respect your opinion, this is my story, and if you don't like it, then don't read it. It's a simple concept. People, constructive criticism. The goal of this story is not a complete overall, it's a long-term exposition of the butterfly effect, the origin of which will be seen in the first change of pace piece after Chapter 5.

**justsomerealguy:** The Zabuza part of the fight was different, yeah, but there was a lot more added to this fight, like the addition of a whole new fighter. The tag team will be coming in the next chapter, so stay tuned!


	5. (Land of Waves 3) Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**(Land of Waves) Chapter 5 – Battle for the Bridge! Team 7 vs. Team Zabuza!**

"It took you long enough to get here, moron," Sasuke said sarcastically as he relaxed his stance.

Naruto shot him a grin. "I would have gotten here a lot faster, but I had backtrack halfway here and stop a couple of Gatō's thugs from killing Inari and Tsunami, and then I had to travel the whole way back here, which took forever." He cracked his fists as the twins retreated back to their original positions to rethink their strategy with the new arrival on the scene.

"Well, this complicates things somewhat, doesn't it brother?" Haku asked as she contemplated the two teammates.

Shiro didn't look too discouraged. "It might make this fight a little more interesting, if anything. Since I've already had the pleasure of fighting both of them, who would you like to take on?"

The female rogue shifted her gaze from the Uchiha teen to the son of the Fourth Hokage, and her eyes settled on the latter. "I've been interested in seeing what the blond one can do since I saw your fight last week," she said slowly, "You can have the Uchiha."

"Works for me," her brother replied simply, and he disappeared from view, appearing opposite of his original spot, with the two Hidden Leaf genin sandwiched between the Hidden Mist twins.

Sasuke locked eyes with the spiky haired teen and murmured, "Well, it seems you want a one-on-one battle."

"For now, yes, but if my sister needs my assistance, then I won't hesitate to help her," was the response he received. The rogue Mist villager held up his fists, which were still swirling with the violent force of tornadoes. "I'm sure you remember these. Are you ready for round two?"

The young Uchiha's only response was to shrug and cockily smirk before exploding in a puff of smoke. Shiro's eyes widened in horror as the heat of a fireball rushed at him from the side, and he jumped back to avoid any damage. Despite his quick reaction, the wind surrounding his wrists sucked in the fire and enraged to a fierce flaming maelstrom around the young man's hands. Shiro quickly cancelled his technique, but if anything, that made the fire worse, as it wasn't being contained and threatened to engulf his body. Using the speed still in his feet, he bolted to the edge of the bridge and disappeared off the edge. Sasuke, emerging from Sakura's final illusion, walked to the edge of the bridge and waited for his foe to emerge from the murky depths of the sea.

...xXx...

Meanwhile, Haku and Naruto stood, silently staring each other down. After a minute of this, the young blond took the initiative and shot at the female rogue. As he approached, a bubbling cloak of red chakra surrounded his body, and a tail emerged from his lower back as his head appeared to gain two large ears and his hands transformed to large claws. Despite this, Haku just smiled and pulled out two senbon from a pouch on her waist. As Naruto drew close to her, water started to condense around the senbon, and as the cloaked teen slashed at her with a claw, she was able to stop it with two icy swords that had formed from the mist in the air. "Ice?" Naruto growled.

Haku nodded softly and replied, "That's right. It's a kekkei genkai (bloodline limit), not dissimilar to the abilities you own as a result of your own, as it appears."

"Not even close, but I'm flattered that you think my entire family can do this," the Kyūbi host hissed, trying to gain the upper hand.

"No matter. You'll see soon enough…" and she pulled back and pushed Naruto's arms away from her with the improvised ice swords, to the young man's surprise, "…that my Hyōton (Ice Release) techniques are not going to be broken easily." The cloaked teen's crimson eyes regarded his opponent and the weapons she wielded carefully before smirking. He thrust his arms forward once more, but harder and with chakra claws bared. Haku didn't expect anything different and put her swords up in a defensive position once more. However, she was shocked when the ice shattered, and the senbon fell out of her hands, merely shards of tempered wood after the deceiving attack. Her eyes widened slightly, and she murmured, "How were you able to do that?" The query was more out of curiosity than anger.

"I'll give you a hint: this isn't a kekkei genkai," Naruto growled. His face went slack for a moment before twisting in a grin as his features grew increasingly more fox-like. A second chakra tail erupted from the base of his spine, and when he spoke again, the voice that came out was that of Kurama, "**This power is unlike any that exists in this world, but you won't be around long enough to figure out what that means.**" The blond's face shifted back into a calmer appearance, but the confident smirk was still there, as was the second tail.

Haku regarded her opponent with a slight narrowing of her eyes. "I'm no pushover, and I certainly am not going anywhere without putting up a fight," she replied. Raising her fists, condensation gathered once more, though this time the ice encased her hands into shapes resembling that of boxing gloves. Without another word, she charged at Naruto, who descended to all fours once more and prepared for her onslaught.

...xXx...

Sasuke was beginning to grow tired of waiting. He had been standing on the lip of the bridge, attempting to peer into the depths of the sea and find a clue as to where his opponent had gone. Not only was the water rather murky, but because he was in the shade of the bridge, there was no way to see if his opponent was hiding out under it using chakra. None of the possibilities made any sense in his mind, and because he hadn't been at the edge when Shiro went over, he couldn't see whether or not he had actually gone into the water.

Finally losing his patience, he shouted, "Are you going to come out and fight me face to face anytime soon?" He was rewarded with nothing but the sounds of the waves lapping against the supports of the bridge. "Fine," he muttered, "If he won't come out, I'll try to smoke him out." He started a long string of hand seals, ending in the Tiger sign. As he was raising his hand to his lips, he caught a familiar sound in his ears, and he whipped around.

Shiro apparently had ducked under the bridge and doused his shirt, which was burnt away to the shoulders but with no real harm to his arms, and then come back up on the opposite side that Sasuke had been standing on to attempt a sneak attack. His hands were once more wrapped in tornadoes, and he was in mid swing towards his opponent's head. "Miss me?" he snarled as he thrust his arm forward.

Not having much time to react, the young Uchiha leapt back so that the swirling winds missed his head, but they still managed to clip his side. He was able to avoid a serious injury, but as he landed, one hand immediately went to inspect the damage. He had been lucky to escape with a few cuts and a destroyed shirt.

Not wasting any time, he continued with his earlier prepared technique and shouted, "Katon - Ryūka no Jutsu (Fire Style – Dragon Fire Technique)!" From between his cupped lips shot out a wide wave of fire that swept towards Shiro.

'Oh, damn, no time to block it! I'd better move it!' the wind master frantically thought as the fire soared towards him, and upon reaching its target, it erupted in a terrific explosion of sparks and stone.

From where he was standing by Sakura, Tazuna couldn't see what was happening in the fight, but he could sure see and hear the explosion, and he spluttered angrily, "Hey, super idiot, don't destroy the bridge!"

The stream of fire slowly petered out from Sasuke's mouth, and the young man finally breathed out a puff of smoke, looking around for where his breezy opponent had gone. Some movement to his right caught his attention, as he saw Shiro appear, obviously starting to show some wear from Sasuke's fire techniques. The tornadoes on his left wrist and ankle had been completely extinguished, with those same joints sporting some nasty burns, and his clothing on the left side of his body was also singed. "Nice try, Uchiha. I have to say, that was a pretty potent technique. I would've been incinerated if I hadn't blasted myself out of the way," he gasped.

"You're just a regular speed demon, aren't you?" Sasuke asked with a smirk. Shiro replied with a similar expression and shot at his foe once more, this time engaging him in a fierce taijutsu battle.

...xXx...

Meanwhile, Shiro's sister and a Kurama-enhanced Uzumaki were furiously exchanging strikes, with Naruto's pure power causing chips to fall away from his opponent's frozen gauntlets, and Haku's boosted punches pounding some bruises into the jinchūriki's flesh. Neither had been able to gain the upper hand in the few minutes that they had been exchanging blows.

However, when Haku felt the explosion that resulted from Sasuke's fire technique, her face erupted in terror, and she started dashing away. Naruto wasn't having any part of that, and he sprinted after. He noted with some interest that she wasn't moving towards that fight but back towards where they had originally engaged with Zabuza, and he couldn't make any sense of it. Increasing his speed, he snarled,

"You can't escape!"

"Who was trying to get away? I was just trying to get to this pool of water," Haku responded, stopping in the middle of a puddle of water, the lone remnants of Zabuza's earlier water clones. As the ice user's frosty glaives melted away, Naruto jabbed forward with a crimson claw, but Haku blocked it with one of her hands, wincing slightly at the twisting chakra. "You've made a grave mistake, friend," she said softly.

The young Uzumaki couldn't see how, but he decided to play her game and responded, "Oh really? Mind explaining that to me?"

"Of course, First, I have you trapped here," and she jerked her head towards their locked fingers, "And second, we're surrounded by a pool of water, which is perfect for my next technique." With that, she lifted her other hand and started weaving one-handed hand seals.

Naruto's red eyes widened in shock at the sight, as he had never heard of anyone capable of such a feat, much less the speed she was flashing her one hand. He had no time to react as she shouted, "Hyōton: Sensatsu Suishō (Ice Release: Death by a Thousand Water Needles)!" Simultaneously, Haku stomped the puddle with her foot, causing it to fly up and form into a thousand needles of frozen water. Naruto could only helplessly watch as the icy missiles all shot at him and pierced through his chakra cloak. He fell silently to the concrete.

"I'm sorry I had to do that, but my brother needs me," Haku said softly. She made a sign and disappeared in a swish of water. She reappeared right in front of her brother, blocking a kick aimed at his head by Sasuke. The young Uchiha's eyes widened slightly in surprise at the new arrival, but he acted quickly. Using his caught leg as a pivot, he swung out with his other foot and made to kick the young woman away from her brother, but she caught that leg as well.

"Oh crap…" he muttered in horror, immediately recognizing his error but unable to do anything to rectify it.

Shiro, recognizing the opening, phased to Sasuke's side and cupped his hands in a familiar stance. The Uchiha's eyes widened as he recognized it as well. Smirking, as wind began to rapidly swirl in his hands, the young rogue began to chant the name of the technique, "Fūton – Tatsumaki Baku…" but was interrupted as a foot collided with his cheek and sent him flying across the bridge.

Haku immediately turned to see if her brother was okay, but that was a costly mistake, as she received a blindside elbow to the back of her head. Dazed, she released Sasuke's legs, and he backflipped away to gain some separation. Naruto appeared at his side, still in his bijū cloak and very much unharmed from the earlier water senbon barrage.

The young Uchiha wiped the sweat from his brow and muttered, "Thanks for the save. I was not interested in taking one of those pointblank." His best friend merely grinned as he peered into the mist. Haku was slowly getting to her feet, and as she turned to face them, her brother emerged, nursing a busted lip.

Naruto's feral fangs smirked at the twins as he asked, "Well, I guess one-on-one is out the window. Let's make our lives easier and fight two-on-two. Any issues there?"

"None whatsoever. Sister, I think it's about time we stopped playing around," Shiro stated, and the long-haired rogue nodded in agreement. and the twins jumped back and started forming hand signs. Both Hidden Leaf genin tensed, observing their technique preparation. The twins linked palms and made one final sign with their free hand, shouting, "Hyōton Hijutsu - Makyō Hyōshō (Ice Style Secret Technique - Demonic Ice Crystal Mirrors)!" From their feet, the sea below, and the air around them, ice sheets began to form in a dome shape surrounding both Naruto and Sasuke.

"What the heck are these things?" the blond asked his friend, looking around worriedly at the ice panels, and the young Uchiha did not have an answer for him.

The twins released hands and began walking towards the dome. "This has truly been an entertaining fight, but it's time to end this. You won't leave this alive," Shiro muttered ominously. His sister stepped towards one of the mirrors...and walked straight into it. As her body disappeared, her image appeared on the opposite side of the pane she had entered.

...xXx...

Kakashi and Zabuza broke their clash and stood opposite of each other, taking a quick breather. As the mist had thinned slightly, he took a quick glance in the direction of his male students and was shocked by the ice pane dome that had appeared. Curiously enough, his Sharingan was unable to register it as a technique that he was able to copy, and so he asked, "Zabuza, what kind of technique is that? What have you taught those children?"

The Demon of the Hidden Mist smirked as he also looked in the direction of his charges. "I taught those two many things, but what they're doing now is something that they've known their entire life."

Kakashi's eyes widened as he connected the dots in his mind. "That's a kekkei genkai? How is that possible?"

"I know what you're thinking," Zabuza replied, "They barely escaped the genocide with their lives. I found them alone on the streets, barely surviving, and that's when I took them in. What you're seeing now is their ability to form a new element, Hyōton (Ice Release)" Smirking, he added, "And as I wager you already know, you can't copy techniques that derive from a kekkei genkai."

"I already figured that out," the Copy Ninja muttered in reply, "I have to say, your techniques have worked pretty well up until now to provide me with a good workout."

The Hidden Mist rogue chuckled and said, "That's not going to rile me up, Kakashi. Not any more." Once more, he charged at the gray haired jōnin, who prepared for round two.

...xXx...

"Witness the power of teamwork only twins can achieve!" Shiro shouted. He formed a new long string of hand seals, exclaiming, "Hyōmai: Ryōkyō (Ice Dance: Twin Pincer)!" The spiky haired teen stepped towards a different mirror than his sister had, walked into it, and came flying out the other side as a spinning tornado filled with ice shards that shot from mirror to mirror. The trapped Leaf genin had nowhere to run, and while Naruto was able to somewhat protect himself with the Kyūbi's chakra, and both boys had the speed to dodge the worst of the attacks, they still ended up on the ground with cuts all over their bodies and senbon protruding from their extremities. The images of Shiro and Haku shimmered to life on either side of the dome as they observed the trapped teens.

"Okay, this is not fun at all," Naruto muttered in pain. His friend nodded as he yanked a few of the thin weapons from his arms and legs.

"What's say we make a run for the outside?" Sasuke suggested, "You go one way, and I go the other."

"Worth a shot," his partner agreed, and they both took off running in opposite directions. Naruto, having the slight edge in speed, nearly made it to the boundary before being slammed by the ice tornado back into the middle, and Sasuke didn't even make it that far before being peppered with senbon. Both boys retreated and aligned themselves back to back.

"Do you have a plan B, genius?" Naruto asked sarcastically.

"Actually, yeah I do," the young Uchiha admitted, surprising the blond, "See if you can fill up the entire dome with Shadow Clones and try to catch them as they attack. I'm going to back off and try to get a read on their attack pattern."

"Sounds good to me." Naruto was already in the process of forming the sign for his favorite technique, and the dome was soon brimming with crimson-cloaked blonds. Almost immediately, the twins began darting from mirror to mirror, attacking the herd that had appeared within their domain, and in doing so they temporarily lost track of Sasuke in all the chaos.

He had to admit, the cloaked Uzumaki was doing a rather exceptional job as a distraction, and that allowed him time to find a pattern in the attack. He kept his eyes trained on each mirror as the twins darted around. Every time they managed to destroy one clone, two more appeared to take its place. This proved beneficial as information began flooding into Sasuke's mind about the pattern that the twins were using: never attacking the same target, always assaulting from opposite sides of the dome, mixing the ice tornado and senbon to confuse their targets. He also started to notice a minute slowing in their movements, indicating that even they didn't have the stamina of their opponent, who could go on all day.

Finally, after what seemed like only seconds but what was really a couple of minutes, Shiro and Haku grew wise to the fact that they had lost Sasuke in the chaos that Naruto had created and disappeared into the ice panes, not appearing on any of the ones that he could see.

Moments later, his senses began screaming, and he forward leapt into the air over Shiro's tornado fist that had emerged from the mirror directly behind him. In front of him, he could see Haku flying straight at him from a pane at the top of the dome. Without hesitation, he turned his body 90 degrees and reached out towards his fast approaching assailants. Grasping a handful of each twin's shirt, he used the momentum from their own attacks and flung them in opposite direction. Shiro was sent flying into the ground, barely managing to land on all four to prevent any serious damage. Haku wasn't so lucky, as she slammed into the roof of the dome and shattered the mirrors as her body crashed into the concrete outside, where she remained still.

Sasuke landed next to his friend and glared at the remaining sibling in front of them. Shiro slowly raised his eyes to meet his opponent's and was astonished at the sight. "His eyes...they're Sharingan!" he muttered in amazement. Indeed, Sasuke's eyes had turned a dark red, the left one with one tomoe (comma) and the right with two.

Although his friend's ears weren't keen enough to pick up what he said, Naruto had no trouble hearing his statement, and in surprise he jerked his head over and looked at his friend's eyes, his eyes widening at the sight.

"Sasuke...your eyes!" he exclaimed, "You awakened your Sharingan!"

"Wait, what? Are you serious? That's why I can see her movements so well!" the dark haired teen replied ecstatically. Naruto handed him a kunai, and while it wasn't the best measure, he was able to see well enough to confirm what had been told to him.

"They chose a good time to appear," Naruto stated, dropping the Kyūbi's chakra and returning to normal, "I was actually starting to get a little tired out there." His teammate nodded his agreement. Looking a few feet away, where Haku had fallen, and then back to the exhausted twin kneeling in front of them, he said, "We need to go see if Kakashi-sensei is alright." Sasuke nodded, and they made to head in that general direction.

"Please…don't leave yet," a barely audible voice rasped. The two boys turned and saw that Haku had stirred and was struggling to sit up. She looked at them with a pleading expression and continued, "We need you to help us."

Neither Hidden Leaf genin could believe what she was saying, and Sasuke snarled, "Why? Why do we owe you any thing! You tried to kill us!"

From behind them, Shiro murmured as he struggled to get to his feet, "The only reason we did it was because Gatō ordered us to. We needed the money to make our dream come true. This one job and we would have what we need to make our plans work. Haku and I have nothing against you two personally, but this mission blew up into something neither us nor Zabuza-sensei could have foreseen."

"That still doesn't explain why we should even consider helping Zabuza," Naruto snapped, "He's sadistic! Does he even have a redeeming quality?"

"Please, listen. He doesn't want to do anything bad to you, either, even if he doesn't seem like it. He was the one that wanted the money in the first place, but he never wanted the mission to end up like this. However, your sensei doesn't know that, so please…help us!" Haku pleaded before she faded from consciousness.

Shiro picked up where she had left off and said, "Gatō has him in a tough situation. Sensei accepted the job without knowing that scumbag's real intentions. Once he heard what we had to do to receive payment, he tried to break off the arrangement, but Gatō threatened to tip off the Hidden Mist Village where he had been hiding out, so he was blackmailed into helping. Please, just save him. That's all we ask. He's the only person we have besides each other."

Both Hidden Leaf genin considered the request, and eventually, Naruto glanced at Sasuke with a questioning look in his eye. His response was a vehement headshake, and the blond gave him a more insistent look. The Uchiha kept shaking his head, but Naruto wouldn't give up, and finally the dark-haired teen relented and said, "Fine, we'll help you out, but if you try any sort of funny business, we're chucking both of you off the bridge. I'll go help Haku, you get Shiro, you massive idiot." Ignoring the giggling from his teammate, he quickly walked over and picked Haku up, bridal-style, noticing her legs were almost completely shattered. Her mask was close to falling off, having been shattered into multiple pieces, and Sasuke threw them aside before picking her up. Naruto lifted Shiro's arm and put it around his shoulders, and the two genin started to slowly walk over towards where they had left Kakashi and Zabuza when they felt a spike of chakra in that direction.

"Oh no, that isn't good," Shiro said worriedly, "Naruto, may I borrow some chakra? I think Zabuza-sensei needs my help." Though both genin were still slightly suspicious of the twins, the blond nodded and pumped some chakra into the spiky haired teen's body until he held up a hand and said, "Okay, that's enough, thank you." He started making handseals before whispering the name of his signature technique, "Fūton: Shura Senpūken." Miniature tornadoes once more erupted from his wrists and ankles, and Shiro disappeared from view.

...xXx...

While all of that was going on, Kakashi had taken some serious damage in the fight courtesy of a large gash in his chest. Unfortunately, after seeing how talented the twins truly were, he felt the need to speed up the pace of the battle, but that had cost him as his rush had resulted in a careless mistake.

Zabuza stood a few feet away. As the blood dripping from his sword seemed to disappear, or rather seep into the sword itself, the Demon of the Hidden Mist sneered, "I believe this fight is nearly done, wouldn't you say?"

"Possibly, but not the way you think," was the reply as Kakashi extracted a scroll from his vest. Unrolling it, he wiped some of the blood from his chest wound on it. The scroll rolled back up, and Kakashi started making hand signs. "I'm finishing this right now. One last move, winner takes all. Doton Kuchiyose - Tsuiga no Jutsu (Earth Style Summoning - Tracking Fang Technique)!" he shouted and slammed the scroll into the ground.

From somewhere in the mist, Zabuza shouted, "Your stupid postulations won't do you any good, Kakashi. Just give it up and hand over the old man!" Hearing only silence, he made to attack, but he aborted those plans when he suddenly heard something approaching him. He looked down…and yelped in pain as eight dogs of various sizes and breeds erupted from the bridge and clamped their jaws down on critical parts of his body, effectively restricting his movements.

Opposite him, Kakashi rose back to his feet and started to form more handseals, saying "I just have two things to tell you. I won't give up, and what I see in your future...is death!"

"Haven't you had enough of bluffing your way out of things?" the Hidden Mist rogue asked snidely, though a tinge of fear was starting to make it to the surface.

"No, this was determined the moment you slaughtered your way out of the Hidden Mist Village," the gray haired jōnin muttered, "Now, enjoy the last few seconds of your life!" He finished his hand signs, and sparking lightning chakra started to gather in his hand. He held his hand towards the ground and shouted, "Raikiri (Lightning Cutter)!"

'Damn, what is this? His chakra's visible!' Zabuza thought, fear starting to permeate his body.

The Hidden Leaf jōnin held firm for a moment, and then he started charging towards his opponent. Right before he reached the bound rogue, two tornadoes came out of nowhere and blocked the Raikiri.

"Don't...hurt...Zabuza-sensei!" Shiro muttered as he struggled against the penetrating power of lightning.

"Kakashi-sensei, listen to him! They aren't the real enemy!" Naruto shouted as the other three ninja caught up with the young man protecting his teacher.

"What are you talking about, Naruto?" Kakashi asked suspiciously, noticing that his Raikiri was surprisingly starting to fail.

"They're doing this because Gatō is forcing them to; they really have no reason to fight against us!" the blond explained, "If we help them, we can get rid of that tyrant once and for all."

Kakashi thought for a moment, and then said, "I admit it makes sense, but we would need Gatō here to confirm it."

"You ask and you shall receive, ninja of the Hidden Leaf Village." The entire group turned their heads in the direction of the shoreline. The mist was thinning, and a few hundred yards from Sakura and Tazuna, who were still both safe, an army of assassins, samurai, and ruffians stood baring both weapons and teeth. At their head was a short man in a tailored suit, and it was that individual whose voice had rung out.

Kakashi deactivated the Raikiri, and Shiro fell over from pain and exhaustion, promptly passing out. The dogs disappeared as they were dismissed, and Zabuza collapsed to his knees, his arms and shoulders bleeding from multiple large bites.

The stumpy man evidently found this quite funny, as he released a nasal laugh and sneered, "Well, well, it looks like the so called Demon of the Hidden Mist has been humbled quite a bit. Isn't that sad?"

"Damn it. This is the last thing we need. If only Gatō was alone, we'd be fine, and we could take him out and solve this problem once and for all," he explained, breathing heavily, "But as it stands, I'm almost out of energy, Zabuza and both of his students are in no shape to fight, you two look wiped, and no matter how much I believe in her, Sakura can't hold off a herd that size." He considered their options, and one idea came to mind. Turning to the Kyūbi host, he asked, "How much chakra do you have left, Naruto?"

The student in question looked somewhat surprised but responded honestly, "I mostly fought hand to hand, so I didn't burn through too much earlier. I'm probably at around 80%."

"Could you get more from your friend if you asked? We need an army of our own, and even with all of your chakra, you might not be able to create enough bodies," Kakashi elaborated, and Naruto quickly understood where he was going with this.

"No problem, just give me a few seconds to get ready," the blond replied with a sly grin before closing his eyes in concentration.

"Kakashi." Hearing his name, the jōnin looked over and saw that Zabuza had made his way back to his feet, though he had to lean heavily on his sword to stay upright. While not life threatening, the dog bites were all bleeding, and he was panting from exhaustion. "Which one is sealed inside of him?"

The Copy Ninja briefly considered feigning ignorance, but it was obvious that the rogue was onto Naruto's pseudo-secret, so he decided to ask, "How did you know?"

"I'll tell you later, but let's just say that my defection from the Hidden Mist Village hasn't been conveyed truthfully in most bingo books," he replied ominously. Changing the subject, he asked, "Can that kid really produce enough Shadow Clones to take out Gatō's army?"

"You'd be surprised at what Naruto can do when he puts his mind to something, but to answer your question, I think he can, yes," Kakashi replied honestly.

"Then I would like a favor from you Hidden Leaf ninja. Leave Gatō to me. I want to finish that fat toad off by myself," the rogue hissed. His answer was a simple nod.

From the shoreline, feeling rather safe with his horde of thugs, Gatō raised his voice to heckle his hired ninja once more. "You're worthless, Zabuza," he cackled, "You've allowed yourself to be beaten by these lowlifes, and now you're resorting to asking for their help. I thought so much better of you!"

Naruto's eyes shot open, and they were filled with a blazing anger. "Shut up! Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" he shouted, and the bridge was soon filled with orange and black clothed blonds. The hired thugs started to shift nervously at the now formidable army they were forced to face, but a glare and bark from Gatō, and they began their charge towards the duplicate army. Sakura and Tazuna quickly made their way to safety behind the clones as they took off and engaged the band of renegades. The original was also preparing to join when Zabuza's voice calling his name stalled him.

"Hey, kid…Naruto, hold a second." Naruto turned back to see Zabuza gazing at the stumpy tyrant, who had moved to the back of the mob, with an odd look in his eyes. "I need a kunai, and my arms are all messed up, so I can't get one of mine. Could you give me one?" he asked softly. The blond looked at him for a second and then nodded. He pulled one out and tossed one in the air, and Zabuza caught it in his uncovered mouth, as his bandages had loosened throughout the fight.

He took a charging run towards the all out brawl, which had quickly taken a turn in the favor of the clone army, and he weaved his way through the crowds. The ruffians were quick to notice, as they called out to their comrades to protect their employer, but because Naruto's clones had done such a good job in clearing their enemies out, Zabuza only took a few minor cuts from errant blades by the time he reached the back of the pack where Gatō was cowering.

"No, don't do it! Get away from me!" he screamed in fear, but the Demon of the Hidden Mist wasn't having any of it.

"Don't worry. You'll find out what true pain feels like when you're burning in hell," Zabuza grunted before he reared back and sliced the head off of the small man, permanently stopping him from ever endangering the world again. As the disembodied cranium fell to the concrete, and the headless corpse soon after, the now free Hidden Mist rogue fell to his knees and started crying in pure relief.

...xXx...

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! The first flashback chapter is next and will definitely relate to Zabuza and the twins, and it will also wrap up this saga, as the next regular chapter will start back in the Hidden Leaf Village.

As a sort of change of pace, I'm going to include a review of each ninja because there has been some confusion about what the as-of-yet unexplained event did to change history. I hope this clears up some things, but I will still be keeping certain events under wraps for the sake of exposition at a later date. I hope that if I can finish this story to my satisfaction, I can do this again as part of a sort of celebratory final chapter. For now, I'm only going to do Naruto, his family, his team, and the Hidden Mist rogues (as they won't be appearing for a long time…but they will be coming back in a big way). I'll do the rest of the Rookie 9 and their instructors once there is a larger sample size to gauge their character (sometime during the chūnin exams, probably, so in a couple of chapters).

Overall: Raising the graduation age brings with it a lumping in of a few aspects that earned entire episodes into the anime. An obvious example is the lack of the tree climbing exercise in this chapter; that and the water walking exercise seem like basic facets of ninja training, so by graduation, all capable ninja can use their chakra to that degree. I also included the discovery of elemental affinities because in my expanded universe, part of being able to become a genin involves demonstrating a basic, but well rounded, set of skills that are useful within a combat situation. To me, that's a basic (but solid) understanding of taijutsu and genjutsu (how to keep up in a hand-to-hand fight and the ability to recognize illusions), basic academy ninjutsu, and an understanding of elemental affinity. Based on each individual student, they will learn more in the areas they are well versed in. As a result, the two characters that have been shown in the Rookie 9 to have a specific affinity already have basic skills in those areas. Don't worry, my goal isn't to make them overpowered; Rasengan and Chidori (and even summoning) will have to wait until similar points in the original.

Uzumaki Naruto: Obviously we'll start with him, being one of the protagonists of this story. While having parents in his life from the start seems like a major change, I was more interested in showing subtle differences and augmentations to his personality to make it fit better. As a result, the Naruto you see here is still the carefree, playful prankster, but it's also apparent that he has more discipline and paid much more attention in his classes for fear of his mother's wrath. This leads to him having more experience with Shadow Clones and a few basic Fūton techniques under his belt. He, like many of the other genin, are much more in tune with romance than their preteen counterparts, and I have already hinted at one of the relationships brewing in this tale involving this young man.

Namikaze Minato: I tried to keep his personality much the same as the original: an overall cheerful leader whose stern battle face hides under a guise of being the consummate family fan. Loyal and powerful, his true abilities have been teased a little against Mizuki (for those people who were complaining about him being too weak, the reason he was ensnared by the mud coffin was due to his surprise at Mizuki's abilities; what he saw and what he knew Mizuki to be capable of turned out to be very separate things, and as a result, he was caught unawares), and there is a very good reason for why he is alive right now. If you want a hint, look for someone who I have steadfastly **not **mentioned in the story thus far. The battle with Kurama will be the subject of probably a couple of the interlude chapters and will answer questions about many of the characters, but those won't pop up for awhile, so I get to keep everyone in suspense.

Uzumaki Kushina: Again, like her husband her personality is meant to match was little was given to us in the original: a powerful shinobi whose abilities are the origin of many of Naruto's own skills, with strong maternal instincts and a temper like no other. Also like her husband, there is a very specific reason why she is alive as well, and the Kurama battle chapters will answer a lot of these questions, as well as (surprise surprise and kudos to anyone who can figure it out) some of the more recent manga chapters (before Kaguya's dimension though). I also made her an excellent cook because it helps to balance out some of her faults and Minato's as well; it just makes sense to me that someone as skilled as the Yellow Flash would be an absolute disaster in the kitchen.

Uchiha Sasuke: Like I have already stated in previous chapters, I've been a bit coy with some of his details, and I'm going to keep it that way for probably a loooooooong time. There are some interesting things I have built into his background as a result of an extended rule of the Fourth Hokage, and you would not be incorrect if you guessed they involve the Uchiha clan massacre, something I have made a concerted effort to ignore up until now. Stay tuned with the story way down the line and I hope you'll be pleased with how that particular event plays out in a flashback chapter. Personality wise, he is still a somewhat quiet individual, though I made the effort to come to a balance between the two personalities we saw in the original: his happy childhood front and the gloom and doom face he put on for much of the series. That resulted in more quiet than emo, and I decided to give him a dry sense of humor, which was already somewhat part of his character anyways. Like Naruto, he has a basic knowledge of Katon techniques, and I gave him Shadow Clones as well because I always thought he had a decently large pool of chakra. Lots of mystery around Sasuke, he'll be an interesting one to work out as the story progresses.

Haruno Sakura: Some may not be too happy about the fan girl nature of the pinkette, but as you can tell in the chapters after her introduction, it was mostly a front just to annoy Ino, just like Ino did to annoy her (they are still very good friends as a result of their petty argument not being as catastrophic as it was in the original, something else that occurred as a result of an overall happier Hidden Leaf Village under Minato). Don't get me wrong, she still has a definite attraction to Sasuke, but it's more of a high school crush than a preteen obsession (in other words, the possibility of her getting over it is present, and yes, what I am implying here can be taken to heart for later on in the tale). She may have seemed very weak in comparison to Naruto and Sasuke, but I'm hoping this chapter and the last one changed that perception. Completely unrelated, but I made her parents into badasses just because they're never heard from in the show outside of that one movie. She deserves better, even if she grinds on all of our nerves.

Hatake Kakashi: Obviously, Kakashi is a more chipper individual as a result of his teacher not being dead. Never fear though, as you can tell, he is still a pervert, a habitually tardy individual (and doesn't feel any repent about it), and a ninja with a very well rounded set of skills (if you want a hint about the universe-altering event I've introduced, I just gave you one in that sentence that helps to narrow down when it might have occurred). He may have seemed weak against Zabuza, but honestly, for his part of the fight, I took it almost directly from the original; I saw no need to change much. The other half of the fight was the more radically different anyways.

Momochi Zabuza: The big, bad Demon of the Hidden Mist really didn't undergo much of a change, just maybe a light facelift. Obviously, having two students instead of just one is a drastic change, and I would like to think that the addition of a female into his every day life loosened him up a little. His skills are exactly the same, as are the way his battles play out, mostly because I didn't see a good reason to change them. The fights involving the two twins allow more diversity, so I just left Zabuza alone and focused my attention on his students' fights. We'll be seeing this crew again later on in the story, but when I say later on, I mean a **lot** later (pretty deep into post timeskip material) unless I change my mind. Just keep it in the back of your mind for reference.

Kōsetsu Shiro and Haku: First of all, and this goes for both twins, they didn't have a last name, and for some reason that **really** grinds on my nerves, so I gave them one. Look it up, it's the Japanese word for snowfall if you're interested. It sounded appropriate for them, so I went with it. As for their personalities, I attempted to split up the original Haku into two people. Shiro is very brash and confident in his skills, sometimes to the point of overconfidence, while Haku has a sort of nurturing spirit and deceptive cunning and strength. Though, after I say that, it sounds like I just turned Haku into a girl and created a new character. Whatever. If you remember the construction of Hyōton techniques, they are composed of wind and water elements; using that, Shiro has a better grasp of the wind half, while Haku is better at the water half. That's not to say they can't use the other element; they just aren't as skilled in it.


	6. (Flashback 1) Rise of the Demon

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**AN:** The first of the expository chapters. This one will be Zabuza-centric after I decided as such after the last chapter was done. Hopefully this will be a welcome change to his character and explain why he seemed so much more docile and amenable to change. Of course, this chapter is based in fact but I made sure to keep some things fresh. Having the whole series done really helps to add in random details.

Also, speaking of which, skip down to the bottom if you don't mind spoilers/already know about the Naruto finale to hear my take on it. Overall, I was very pleased, but I am looking forward to some closure later on.

**Flashback Chapter – Rise of the Demon of the Hidden Mist**

_**Many years prior, in the Hidden Mist Village during the reign of the Fourth Mizukage**_

The Hidden Mist Village was truly a dark and gloomy place to live. Holding up to its reputation, the buildings were constantly surrounded by a hazy gloom that never seemed to ease, and as such, many residents had no idea what the sun truly looked like. Even in the early evening, it was hard to find a single soul on the streets. This would be odd in many other villages, given that it was graduation day at the academy, but the Hidden Mist Village was not like the other ninja sovereignties.

The graduation exam for this particular village was an all out battle royale, with teenagers fighting their longtime friends and comrades to the death in order to survive. Mere children who had grown up learning with, having fun with, even loving their peers were forced to slaughter them or fall to another of their classmates. It was a truly barbaric practice, and one that the other four major ninja villages condemned, but as it was a brainchild of the Fourth Mizukage, it was difficult to change the policy without a significant change up top. No one had any real idea why he had implemented such a horrific plan, but he wasn't someone that you questioned, so the practice remained in place.

This particular graduation had been particularly disturbing, even to those who championed the idea of this bloody rite of passage. The entire class of graduates had been thrown into one of the village's training grounds, as per usual, but the screams of horror and pleas for help had come to an abrupt halt ten minutes into the test. The chūnin and jōnin that had been assigned to guard the exits of the impromptu arena were starting to exchange looks of confusion when the noise didn't start again, and finally the captain of the multi-man squad told his underlings that he was going to investigate. The rest of his men redistributed themselves accordingly, and the captain soon disappeared within the forest.

What seemed like only moments later, a small figure emerged from the towering trees, someone shorter than the man who had just entered. As he drew closer to the fence that separated the grounds from the rest of the village, the chūnin and jōnin could only recoil in horror at the sight. The young man, no more than 13 or 14, was covered from head to toe in blood, and his face was terrifyingly calm and neutral in its expression. His blue, long-sleeved shirt and khaki shorts were stained crimson. In one hand, he held a simple kunai, and the object in his other, he chucked over the fence. "Take me to the Mizukage. Everyone else is dead," the young man murmured. The guards quickly scrambled to get the gates open, and they ushered him off back into the village, leaving behind the head of the squad leader, permanently frozen in shock, lying on the ground.

…xXx…

"Well, this is quite the quandary," the short-statured leader of the Hidden Mist Village mused as he looked at the young man, whose eyes were still glazed over.

Most of the residents of the village found their Mizukage to be quite the intimidating figure, but most were just plain creeped out by him. For someone who was in his late twenties, he didn't look the part; not even reaching five feet in stature, his dull stare was only augmented by the scar extending down from his left eye, and no one could ever tell what he was thinking at any given time. Following the death of the Second Mizukage in battle, having received wounds too egregious to recover from courtesy of the Second Tsuchikage, the position was filled by a benevolent ruler who made every effort to continue the era of peace that had perpetuated as a result of Hōzuki Gengetsu's efforts on the battlefield.

Unfortunately, that is what cost him his life. The previous host of the Three Tailed Turtle, the younger brother of the Second Mizukage, succumbed to illness, and a new host was needed. Short on time and suitable candidates, it was locked into his cousin, his closest living relative. Three weeks later, Yagura had taken rein of the village through brute force, leaving the Third Mizukage nothing more than a messy smear on the wall. And so, the age of the Village of the Bloody Mist began.

The ninja that had accompanied the young man to the office of the Mizukage had explained the situation to Yagura to the best of their ability, but they weren't privy to much of what had happened outside of seeing their leader's head in the hands of the silent young man. The short leader of the Hidden Mist Village observed the spiky haired youth, who had not yet even opened his mouth to breathe, and asked, "Young man, I must admit I am curious how you were able to overtake and neutralize an entire class of academy graduates when you have not even officially entered and started taking classes." His blank but playful eyes suddenly hardened, and no one noticed the flash of red as his voice grew gruff, "Explain yourself right now."

Momochi Zabuza finally made a sign of life, as he slowly lifted his head to meet the gaze of the teal-haired midget seated in front of him, and as he spoke, his voice came out as nothing more than a whisper. "There isn't much to say, Lord Mizukage. I just felt it prudent to make my abilities known to you in a timely fashion so you can make use of me in the best way that you see fit." All of the ninja in the room were confused by that statement, seemingly years ahead of the young man's age, even as he continued, "The class that I would have entered with was full of children loaded with potential, and the group that I took care of just earlier today were pitiful and weak, even after their studies."

"But who are you to judge whether or not they would be useful to me and the village?" Yagura pressed him, "Who's to say that none of them had any chance of becoming ninja of fame and prestige?"

"My Lord," and young Zabuza hesitated, trying to find the right words to both express what he wanted to correctly and to not anger the short ruler of the Hidden Mist Village, "Let me answer your question with a comparison." Seeing a wave of approval, he continued, "If you were forced to choose between counting on a battle royale, an event that is based in luck just as much as skill, producing a fine ninja 100 percent of the time, or allowing nature to take its course and having the best ninja survive and serve you for a long time, which would you choose?"

The reasoning of the bloodied boy admittedly impressed Yagura, and for that reason and that reason alone he chose to ignore his brazenness and answer him honestly. "You are truly an enigma, son, and yet I can't help but like the way you think. You truly have the best interests of the village in your mind, even though you aren't yet a loyal soldier under my command." He shifted his gaze up and locked eyes with the chūnin and jōnin that were still standing in the office. "Leave us. I have some things to discuss with this young man in private."

The appalled looks on their face said it all. "But sir!" "You can't be serious!" "Surely you aren't going to let him go scot-free!" they all blurted out, temporarily forgetting their place.

Yagura's eyes hardened once more, and the elder ninja froze in fear, not able to look away from the Fourth Mizukage's angry glare. "I gave you an order, and I expect you to follow it," he hissed, "_Do I make myself clear_?" They all jerked their heads in a motion that some might construe as affirmation, and their leader followed with a curt nod and another smoldering look that snapped them out of their stupor and had them running for the door.

Once the room had been cleared, Yagura turned his much calmer gaze towards the young man before him. "You intrigue me, young man, and I have the feeling you could be a great ninja given time and training. I don't know what kind of scheme you have cooked up, or whom you're trying to protect…" he didn't miss the slight twitch of Zabuza's eye but also paid it no mind, "…but I'll play along with it for now." His next statement took the young killer by surprise, though he made sure not to show it. "Go home and clean up, get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow, you step into a whole new world, and I do hope you don't disappoint me." The hard tint returned to Yagura's eye, and this time Zabuza was sure he caught a crimson flash deep in his eyes, though it was gone as fast as it appeared. Maintaining his neutral expression, he bowed briefly and exited the room as quickly as he could.

As the door shut behind him, the Mizukage with looks of youth gained a battle-hardened sneer borne of countless conflicts and strife, well beyond the grasp of someone who was still relatively young. "I must keep an eye on that one," he murmured, his voice once again deepening to a level that wasn't his own.

…xXx…

The academy graduation "exam" was traditionally given at night, so by the time Zabuza was on his way home, it was well past midnight, and there was no one on the streets. He was actually quite glad about that; it might be the last time he could walk around in the village without people looking at him.

Momochi Zabuza came from rather humble backgrounds. His father was originally a ninja of the Hidden Mist Village. Not particularly strong or clever, he was an average talent but one that made a steady living. Unfortunately, not having any special skills is what cost him his career. His team was ambushed during an escort mission, and while he was the only survivor, he also lost both limbs on the right side of his body, effectively ending his job as a Hidden Mist shinobi. More than once he had considered the possibility that if he had been brought up in the Bloody Mist era, his father probably would not have survived the academy graduation exam.

On the other hand, he had no idea who his mother was, and no one that was close to his family divulged any information about her. Whether that was because they honestly didn't know anything or there was something to hide, he didn't have any idea, but judging by the amount of time his father spent frequenting strip clubs and the red light district, the young Zabuza was more inclined to say his mother was just some passing fancy.

It wasn't something that worried the boy, as odd as that may sound. Thanks to how much of a slob his father had turned into as a result of his permanent injuries, Zabuza had long since learned how to live as a loner. He woke himself up at the crack of dawn, and he had already basically taught himself everything that he would have learned at the academy. He cooked, cleaned, shopped, did mostly everything for both him and his father. Looking back on it years later, in a moment of nostalgia, he found it odd how his lazy, worthless bum of a father could make it to the seediest parts of the Hidden Mist Village with seemingly no assistance but he had neither the time nor motivation to keep his living space somewhat hospitable.

Thanks to the streets being completely bare, he was home in no time. He and his father lived in an old, one story house on the outskirts of the village. It wasn't falling down, but thanks to his father's laziness it wasn't in peak condition either. Zabuza made no effort to hide his entrance; he fully expected to be greeted by complete silence or wall rattling snores. The former held true, and the note that the young man had left on the kitchen table lay untouched. He had written that he had gone off to a training ground to practice, and as he grabbed some fruit from the somewhat bare refrigerator, he allowed himself a small chuckle at how he hadn't told a lie.

The moment he entered his room, though, the floodgates opened, and all of the emotions he had blocked off came rushing out in full force. He didn't even make it to his bed, instead collapsing on the spot and crying uncontrollably. The façade he put on get through the first part of his plan dissolved the moment that he was safely in the privacy of his own home.

The truth was, he wasn't a cold-blooded killer, and he honestly had no desire to be. There was no reason for those academy students to die, but he had no choice but to take them out of commission to make a point to the Fourth Mizukage. Luckily, the man was a volatile despot, so putting on a show of carnage and directly challenging the man to his face was the optimal way to grab his attention and keep it.

Still sniffling, he crawled over to the desk in the corner of his room and slipped under where the chair would normally rest. Poking the underside of the wood, right where a knot remained, he opened a secret compartment and pulled out some papers covered in his illegible scrawl. Those were hidden for a reason, as they had some rather incriminating things on them that others did not need to be laying their eyes on. He wasn't a hardened criminal by any stretch of the imagination, but there were many ideas that floated in his mind that, if they could be fulfilled, would drastically change the course of the Hidden Mist Village.

Flashing through the makeshift files, he quickly found one and removed it from the rest. Zabuza crumpled up that one and left his room momentarily, returning with his father's ashtray and some matches. The young slayer quickly set alight the paper in his hand and left it to burn in the porcelain bowl as he set his attention back to the files laid out in front of him.

Being fairly sure that he could predict even the most basic of moves that the mentally unstable Mizukage could come up with, he anticipated being taken away the next morning for advanced training. No doubt Yagura was licking his chops at having a cold blooded killer in his hands to mold in any way he desired, and for Zabuza, having achieved what he had wanted through his shocking and heinous act of slaughter earlier in the day, he could rest easy that she would be safe.

Yes, the true reason behind his machinations lay in a photograph in the middle of the papers on his floor. It was a well-worn picture and showed two people. One was a younger version of the young man gazing at it fondly, and the other was a slightly older girl. Due to the photograph's age and handling, her features were somewhat warped, but as it was, she had long hair that appeared tan, eyes that were a dull shade of either green or brown, and a simple blue sundress. Both children appeared to be in a state of pure bliss, laughing about a joke of years past no doubt.

Zabuza picked up the photograph and held it carefully, as the edges were already quite frayed; committing what remained of the image to memory before gently placing it in the ashtray and returning his attention to the files. One by one, he labored to memorize every bit of information on each of the papers before ripping them up and adding them to the small blaze in his father's ashtray until nothing was left but a pile of ash. Taking a deep breath, he stood up and stretched out, somewhat sore after sitting on the floor for so long. He walked out for a moment before returning with a glass of water, which he guzzled down quickly. The next thing that he did was take the ash and dump it in the toilet, flushing it away into the sewage system and permanently destroying any evidence he had.

To a passing observer this might have seemed odd, overly cautious, even neurotic, but Zabuza was no fool despite his age. He was well aware that the moment he was taken away by Yagura's most trusted instructors the following morning, the stealth and intelligence corps would raid this house and look for any possible reason to label the young man a traitor or threat or anything unhealthy to the welfare of the village. They would probably even interrogate his father, for all the good that would do. There was practically no communication between father and son, so they wouldn't get anything out of him. Still, he wasn't planning on leaving anything up to chance. His room was bare even as it was, with only a few books and scrolls lying around and the clothes in his closet counting as his worldly possessions.

He glanced at those educational materials, neatly arranged on his desk, and thought about their contents. Most of them were basic academy texts that he had taken a look at briefly, but one in particular stood out. Zabuza was banking on the swordplay scroll, along with the sword he had discarded in the training ground, to catch their attention. Being a member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist granted one much more power than the average jōnin, and in order for his plan to work, he had to grind his way there. His clues would hopefully help push that along quicker.

Satisfied with his work, the young man quietly prepared himself for bed and retreated for the night.

…xXx…

Just as he had anticipated, the next morning he was awakened by Yagura's finest jōnin instructors and taken to the Hidden Mist Village's special education center. There, Zabuza spent the next few years undergoing some of the harshest, painful, mind-numbingly difficult training known to the shinobi world. His body was broken and put back together more times than he could remember, and a host of training regimens and supplements quickly led to the development of a body matched by few of his peers. The Mizukage's best intelligence experts challenged his mind in a daily basis, but he held firm in the face of interrogation techniques on the level of those of the Yamanaka clan of the Hidden Leaf Village.

His ploy to lay the seed of interest in the higher-ups in the Hidden Mist Village appeared to take hold rather fast, as part of his training involved learning how to wield a sword at a high level of proficiency. Zabuza's hopes were somewhat dampened because it turned out that one year in, he was introduced into the ANBU corps, having quickly risen in the ranks from genin to chūnin to jōnin at the time of his induction. Yagura's high hopes for the young man who had singlehandedly forced a change in the academy's curriculum and final examination were not unfounded.

Now in his early teens, he stood tall, armed with a basic sword granted to all agents who were members of ANBU. With age came more mature clothing, opting to show off his body for intimidation purposes instead of covering up to protect from the sea breezes that the Hidden Mist Village was famous for. He wore a long-sleeved back bodysuit, over which he wore the ANBU-style armor. Missions were frequent and often quite deadly and dangerous, but he reveled in the opportunity. Being in a position of relative authority and excelling at his job meant that chances to impress the increasingly unstable Yagura were plentiful.

…xXx…

Only a year into his service as an agent of the Hidden Mist ANBU (and barely two after his bloody introduction to the village), he was called into the Mizukage's office without any apparent reason. Holding out some small hope that it was actually related to the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, he entered and immediately had to stifle his reaction.

Seated at his desk as usual was Yagura, looking extremely angry. Zabuza briefly wondered if he was losing his touch on reality, possibly as a result of the Three Tailed Turtle residing within him; the pupils of the eyes of the Hidden Mist's leader were constantly shrunken, the bags under his eyes had grown progressively more pronounced over the years, and he could never keep his gaze focused on one particular area for longer than a few seconds.

Scattered around the room were four other men. Akebino Jinin was seated closest to the door that Zabuza had just entered, sitting on top of the giant hammer that made up half of his sword, Kabutowari. The other half, the giant axe head blade, was propped up against the wall behind him. His expression was neutral, but as the new arrival entered, Zabuza felt the beady eyes of Jinin bore into his skull, following his every move. He was the leader of the seven swordsmen, and his domineering personality was a perfect fit for the position he was in.

On the opposite side of the room, looking for all the world like he was sleeping with the way he was slouched against the wall, was Kuriarare Kushimaru. Because of the mask on his face, there was no way to tell where he was looking or what he was feeling, but by the way he was delicately tapping the longsword, Nuibari, against his hand, and the muted cackling from behind his mask, Zabuza couldn't help but feel a chill. The masked man slowly turned his head towards the new arrival, and the spiky haired teen quickly shifted his attention elsewhere.

Seated in a chair close to the Mizukage's desk, unlike his other teammates, was Kurosuki Raiga. Kiba, his twin swords, were holstered to his back, and he kept his eyes closed even as the young ANBU agent entered the room. Possibly the most peaceful of the seven swordsmen, not once did he look up or open his eyes, almost as if he wasn't interested at all in the proceedings.

Finally, Suikazan Fuguki was squeezed into the space on the other side of Yagura's desk, sitting cross-legged. A hulking behemoth of a man, his miniscule eyes briefly took in Zabuza before moving elsewhere. His personal weapon, Samehada, lay on the floor in front of him. He was Raiga's antithesis; everyone in the Hidden Mist Village was well aware of Fuguki's cruel nature. The fat man reveled in any chance to bend the rules and take advantage of his power, and he knew he could get away with it.

Zabuza's gaze took in each individual member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, noting that only four of them were present. Even more of interest were the three swords lying on a table erected in front of Yagura's desk, their owners not present in the office.

The aforementioned leader looked up and smiled somewhat manically at seeing Zabuza standing in his office. "Ah, Momochi, thank you so much for coming on short notice."

The young man took another glance around the room and in a somewhat nervous tone asked, "It wasn't a problem, sir, but I am not sure I understand why exactly I am here." A huff from Jinin and a louder cackle from Kushimaru only served to confuse him further.

Yagura's expression grew sour, and he spluttered, "Well, I was hoping this would be on better terms than this, but as a result of a run in with some Hidden Leaf Ninja, I find myself down three of my seven swordsmen, and we need to replace them as soon as possible." Glaring at Jinin in particular, he continued, "A _genin_ somehow managed to kill the owners of the three swords you see before you before the rest of the squad managed to take him out. Since we were suddenly down three of our best ninja, replacements had to be found rather quickly. After a long deliberation with the _remaining_," and again, he sent a smoldering glare towards Jinin, who steadfastly refused to meet his eyes, "four swordsmen, and careful examination of your records, we have chosen you to be one of the three replacements."

Zabuza's eyes widened as he took in the fact that he was being inducted into the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. Realizing that he needed to express his gratitude, he spluttered, "Thank you sir! I am flattered that you would even consider me as a candidate for this group."

Yagura immediately sent him a look that quieted him, and the diminutive leader snapped, "You're here to fight, not talk, Momochi. Do not waste my time." He gestured to the weapons lying on the table and said, "Take your pick of swords. The sword chooses the owner, so you will know the moment you touch the correct one which one you are destined to yield." Waving his hand at him, Yagura spun his chair around, clutching his head in his hands as if it was in pain.

The newly coined swordsman slowly approached the table, noting that all four swordsmen had grown quiet and still and were observing him carefully, even Raiga whose eyes had finally opened. His options were somewhat odd. There was a flat bladed sword that looked like there was a scroll wrapped around it, the second one was a large, shellfish-shaped sword wrapped in bandages and appearing to require two hands to use, and a final one which the now former ANBU agent was drawn to. It was a long blade, with a large hole at the end of the blade and a semicircle cutout near the base. He picked it up, and even though it was quite heavy, he liked the feel and simplicity of it. Furthermore, just as Yagura had said, he felt an immediate connection to the blade through his chakra, as if there was some kind of special ability hidden within the sword. "I like this one," he said simply, "It has a nice edge, good length for my stature, and I feel a connection with it, like Lord Mizukage said."

Still turned around, Zabuza saw the village leader wave his hand in dismissal, "Good, now get the hell out of here. Your elders have to initiate you into the group and train you in the use of the sword." While he didn't necessarily like the sound of the "initiation," he nodded and turned to Jinin, who was snickering in amusement.

The short man instantly grinned and hissed, "Let's go, Momochi. We have a lot to do today…" and he swept his arm in a mocking deferral to the youngest member of the swordsmen.

…xXx…

The newest member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist was quickly introduced into the fold via more excruciating body enhancements and training. His well toned body gained even more muscle, and his teeth were sharpened into points, as was customary for members of the group. Missions were performed either in teams of three or, in more important or dire situations, the whole seven man squad. The other two spots were filled quickly after he joined: a young man from the Hidden Mist Village's Hōzuki clan named Mangetsu, and a man called Munashi Jinpachi.

The silver haired Mangetsu was a quiet individual, but he was constantly asking all of the other members of the group about their swords, even training with them in their free time with all of the other weapons. He was a quick learner, and in only a couple of months, he had become basically proficient in all seven swords. His best was of course the one that had been granted to him, Hiramekarei, and Zabuza was surprised at how well the quiet young man could wield his own weapon, Kubikiribōchō. Mangetsu's younger brother Suigetsu was a promising prospect at joining the organization later in his life, and often when the older brother was out on missions, and no one else was on hand to spar with him, Zabuza would practice with the younger Hōzuki, even letting him use the long sword every now and then.

Jinpachi wasn't as talented in swordsmanship as his partners, though he was much more proficient than regular ninja, but what he lacked in finesse he made up through pure brute force and disregard for his surroundings. His blast sword Shibuki didn't require direct contact to cause egregious injuries, and his fighting style often brought him into conflict with Kushimaru. The former believed in getting the job done in any way necessary, even sacrificing comrades to do so, while the latter (despite his unstable façade) preferred killing with a touch of finesse.

For a few years, the band of 7 worked without any change or turnover, executing missions at a high level of efficiency and eliminating targets swiftly. Their reputation was without equal, and there was no greater force in the land than the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist in that time.

It wasn't meant to last, though. The first moment of discord occurred when Raiga defected with no warning whatsoever, leaving his weapons behind. It was rumored that he had become disillusioned with the ways of the village, and his betrayal was only a matter of when, not if. Other rumors floated around that he had left with a young boy in his care, though they were unsubstantiated. His spot was filled by Ameyuri Ringo, a sickly young girl whose talent with Kiba was unmatched. She was a rare skill with swords, but her life couldn't stand the hard lifestyle that was required of a swordsman in the Hidden Mist Village, and she perished soon after joining. Mysteriously, the twin swords disappeared soon after her death, and they were not seen again. As a result, the last spot couldn't be filled, and the seven shrunk to six.

The next issue followed soon after. One of Fuguki's subordinates, a scary intelligence agent by the name of Hoshigaki Kisame, slaughtered his master, seemingly in cold blood, and took his sword, declaring himself to be the replacement for the puffer fish man. Yagura was in favor of the shark man's actions once evidence surfaced showing that the elder swordsman was secretly feeding information out of the village in return for kickbacks.

However, the problems that had caused Kisame to torture and eliminate the traitorous Fuguki soon led to issues with the village as a whole, and a few months after joining, constantly increasing intelligence pointing to a Hidden Mist ninja performing unauthorized assassinations and attacking the lord of a foreign country led to Kisame's bloody departure from the village.

…xXx…

_**A few months after Kisame and Raiga's departure**_

"What has happened to this village, Momochi?" Yagura groaned, "Why is everything going to hell? We've lost two swordsmen as traitors, another one to illness. The citizens are getting unruly, and the ninja are not doing what I say half of the time."

From the other side of the desk, where he could only see his lord's reflection in the mirror, Zabuza took note of how gaunt the Mizukage's face appeared. It had only been a few years since he had entered office, but in that time he had appeared to age decades. "Sir, please don't take this the wrong way, but we all can use some down time every now and then," he suggested tentatively, "Maybe it might do your body and mind some good to take a few days off?"

He heard a sigh from behind the chair, and the voice that came out was much deeper than before, "I will rest once I have taken care of business here." The chair spun around, and Zabuza once more noticed the red glint in his leader's eye that he believed to have seen when he was younger and more naïve. Now, older and shrewder, he recognized the sign of an outside influence on his leader. However, he kept his mouth shut and listened as Yagura continued, "Would you be willing to help me with an idea that I have? I could use someone with your power and influence to make sure everything goes smoothly, and after all of the debacles that have beset your group, you are the only one I trust implicitly."

The Demon of the Hidden Mist briefly found it amusing that the diminutive leader found him to be an ally, but he buried that emotion and said plainly, "What do you have in mind, Lord Mizukage?"

Yagura, or whoever/whatever was controlling him, stroked his chin in quiet contemplation, observing the jōnin before him. "As I alluded to before, it has come to my attention that the ninja of this village have begun to feel uneasy. It's becoming increasingly more difficult to get certain shinobi to cooperate with their mission orders, and I feel that action needs to be taken."

Zabuza was somewhat confused by that statement; he was privy to a lot of information and intelligence regarding the activities of the village and of the villagers, and he had heard nothing of this. He decided that the best plan of attack was to play coy and ask, "If you don't mind my asking, Lord Mizukage, what group is this? I haven't heard anything about this." Almost immediately, his eyes were locked with those of the village leader, and he couldn't help but feel some fear due to the menacing look he was receiving.

"Not a problem, my boy," he replied calmly, "Are you aware of the rise in the number of families within the village that carry kekkei genkai within their bloodlines?" Zabuza's blood ran cold, but he nodded silently, "Just to name a few, the Kōsetsu clan and their Hyōton techniques and the Futton (Boil Style) of the Terumī clan have been growing in power. The Kaguya have never been loyal to the village, though they have had their uses as mercenaries. I have even heard reports that the husband of the matriarch of the Terumī, a refugee from the Hidden Rock Village, carries the Yōton (Lava Style) in his blood, and the heir to the clan has inherited both of her parents' abilities." By now, the wielder of Kubikiribōchō was sweating, struggling just to keep his cool.

"Sir, again please don't take this the wrong way, but all interactions I have had with associates from those clans have been nothing but positive, excluding the Kaguya as you have already mentioned," Zabuza said slowly, "I would personally limit their movements in the village, as I have heard unsubstantiated rumors of rebellion within their ranks, but the other two have done nothing but be loyal to the Hidden Mist. There are hardly any Kōsetsu left to cause any problems to you, and the Terumī occupy key roles in the management of the village."

"Loyalty is nothing if their potential could lead to strife," Yagura growled in response, "I do agree with you about the Kaguya. They need to be dealt with in a timely manner, but the other two need to be eradicated as soon as possible. In fact, that's why I called you in here today."

"What do you mean, sir?" the swordsman asked nervously, not liking at all where this conversation was turning.

"Earlier today, I actually received a report that the one remaining family of the Kōsetsu clan was killed. Indications are that it was a murder-suicide involving the parents. The children haven't been located, but the entire house was destroyed by giant ice spears, so it might take awhile to sort out what happened, and it is hard to believe that they survived something like that," Yagura mused, his face still twisted in a hideous smirk, "And the Kaguya will be dealt with as soon as they rebel. I already have teams in place, specially designed to counteract the abilities of their clan, to wipe them out for good."

"That's…good, sir," the swordsman replied slowly, "I see you have taken quick action with this."

The short leader chuckled in amusement. "I'm so glad you approve of my decisions, Momochi, so I hope you approve of the job I am about to give you." The young man before him gulped anxiously but nodded for Yagura to continue. "Since many of my men are preoccupied with these other tasks, and the other swordsmen have been…disappointing to say the least, I need you to do take care of the last duty. It's rather appropriate seeing as she probably exists due to you convincing me to get rid of my graduation plan… I need you eradicate the Terumī."

Zabuza was stunned into silence, but he made sure to keep his face set in a neutral expression. Realizing that he needed to say something in order to not draw suspicion, he asked carefully, "How do you want me to proceed?"

"Do as you see fit," was his reply, "If you need a team, fine. If you want to do it alone, fine. Just do it. You have until dusk tomorrow. Dismissed." The crazed leader swung his chair back around and said no more.

The Demon of the Hidden Mist wasted no time in leaving the main building and heading back to his apartment. His small accommodations were eerily similar to those of his old room at his father's house. His possessions were next to nonexistent and consisted of a few changes of clothes, weapons, and scrolls. Those he quickly consolidated and stowed away into a blank scroll using a storage seal, and after checking to make sure he had not left anything behind and his gear was fully stocked, he left his meager lodging for the last time.

The Terumī clan was housed near the outskirts of town, which played to Zabuza's advantage as he raced there, praying to whatever deities existed that he would be able to pull this off. They were not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but they had enough money to live comfortably. The swordsman knocked on the door to the main house and impatiently waited for someone to answer.

Luckily the very person he needed to see came to the door. A true beauty, Terumī Mei was one of the original benefactors of Zabuza's actions during the last "Bloody Mist" graduation exam, as she had grown into a fine Hidden Mist shinobi. Having been blessed with two kekkei genkai thanks to her unique background, she was the definition of deadly grace, with stunning good looks and unbelievable talent. As the young swordsman looked at her, even in his panic, he kept her at the forefront of his mind, forever the girl in the picture permanently imprinted in his mind. Childhood friends from near birth, he wouldn't let anyone get their hands on her unless they went through his dead body.

She looked alarmed at how harried the young man before her had appeared on her doorstep, and she asked, "Zabuza, what's wrong?"

Cutting straight to the point, he replied, "You need to get out of here. I was just ordered to exterminate your clan, and we don't have much time for you to get out of here." He peered into the house behind her and didn't see anyone. "Are your parents at home?"

Mei could hardly believe what she was hearing, but she shook her head in response, sending her mahogany waves rippling down her back. "No, they're both out on missions. I'm the only one at home right now."

"Good," Zabuza breathed in relief, thankful that at least one thing had gone right, "How fast can you pack all of your things?"

The talented beauty looked unsure but she gave her best estimate, "If I hurry, probably five minutes."

"Go," was all her companion said, and it was all that the Terumī heir needed to retreat back into her home, while Zabuza stood guard outside of the house, keeping his eyes trained for anyone suspicious coming near the large home.

Sure enough, she reappeared with a scroll in hand, and Zabuza grabbed her hand and started running to the village exit, luckily not far away. "What's Lord Mizukage thinking?" Mei asked herself, "Why would he do this?"

"It isn't him." Startled, the beauty looked to her partner for explanation. "At least, it isn't all him. Someone is controlling him. I saw it in his eyes. Almost looked like a Sharingan genjutsu but I couldn't be sure." Mei was stunned into silence as all of the information of the past few minutes seeped into her brain, and Zabuza did likewise as they neared the exit.

As usual, the guard on duty came out to greet them, but bandages shielded his face, so the two fleeing ninja couldn't identify him. His voice was muffled as he casually walked into their path, causing them to screech to an abrupt halt. "Where are you to headed off to in such a big hurry?" he drawled, "Maybe a rendezvous out in the woods? You do know that's against the rules."

Ignoring Mei's blush at the implication, Zabuza replied carefully, "We were just going to get some training in, that's all. If you think that there's more to it than that, feel free to come with us and see."

The guard's mouth turned up in a definite smirk, even through the bandages. "Training, huh? You must have some intense workouts planned if she's going to be dead by the time you're done with her." Both would-be escapees froze in panic, and they watched in horror as the man before them dissolved into a puddle of water and reformed into a tall man.

With silver hair falling lightly around his face, and elegant robes betraying his high status within the village, Hōzuki Shingetsu was an intimidating figure. It was common knowledge that he was next in line for the seat of village leader, and his pedigree spoke for itself. As the father of both Mangetsu and Suigetsu, and the son of the Second Mizukage, he was an ideal fit to take over for Yagura when the time was right, and his battlefield prowess was second to none in the Hidden Mist Village. Basically, he was the last person they needed to encounter, and it was compounded by the fact that he was apparently in on the Mizukage's plan. "I know my sons think quite highly of you, Zabuza, and I would be willing to overlook this if you just complete the mission you were assigned right here, right now," the heir apparent said smoothly, "You have been nothing but loyal to this village from the start, and I would hate to stain your perfect record or dirty my hands with your blood."

Dropping any pretense of getting out of the situation without a fight, Zabuza turned back to Mei and whispered to her, "He's not going to let us get out of here alive without a fight. While I occupy his attention, I need you to run. Run as hard as you can, and don't look back. If I can get past him, I'll meet you where we used to play when we were kids." His partner looked like she wanted to argue, but a smoldering look cut off her objections, and she took off into the woods, past the smirking Shingetsu who didn't make a move to stop her.

"You're going to let her go?" Zabuza asked dubiously.

The Mizukage candidate shrugged. "I'd rather enjoy our time together, young Zabuza. She'll be taken care of in no time, just like I took care of her parents." He pulled his hands out of his pockets, and the blood that covered him was damning evidence. The swordsman only saw red, and he charged at the man before him in a blind rage.

…xXx…

Zabuza staggered through the woods, clutching at the oozing wound across his gut. He was bleeding from numerous small cuts on his body, and his sword had been reduced to half of its normal size thanks to a shattering blow delivered to it during the fight. Luckily, his open wounds were serving to slowly regenerate the blade, as per the special ability it held.

He had no idea how he had managed to defeat Hōzuki Shingetsu, and he was unaware of how long he had been wandering, but he slowly came to realize that he had arrived in the meeting place he had indicated earlier. His heart dropped as it became painfully apparent that Mei was not there, and he collapsed against a tree and closed his eyes to rest.

…xXx…

The feared Demon of the Hidden Mist never saw Terumī Mei again, and after the apparent murder of the Mizukage candidate by his hands, he was labeled as an international criminal and placed on every village's watch lists. In the back of his mind, he couldn't help but think that this was all part of Yagura's plan. He somehow knew that Zabuza wasn't a blindly loyal gremlin under his command, and he also knew about the connection between him and the powerful beauty, and he had used that to his advantage to eliminate yet another obstacle in his path.

He had awoken to two small children tending to his wounds, and to his surprise, he recognized them as the two missing heirs to the Kōsetsu clan. They helped him get to his feet, and he followed them to a small cave hidden away in the woods, where it was apparent that they had been hiding out. They cared for the Hidden Mist rogue there until he had sufficiently recovered from his wounds. As academy students, they were decently skilled in basic ninjutsu, and so Zabuza took it upon himself to become their teacher. Even as outcasts from their village, they still held themselves as proud Hidden Mist shinobi, and as such, their master was able to orchestrate a risky operation to insert their names into the secret ninja rosters and procure two Mist headbands to identify them as such. He never revealed to them how he did it, but let's just say he was damn lucky that Mangetsu wasn't bitter about Zabuza murdering his father. Both sons had never liked the man since he was a true bastard.

News coming out of the Hidden Mist Village was sparse and censored, but from what the Demon of the Hidden Mist could piece together, the three major clans that had kekkei genkai running in their blood no longer existed, and the remaining scattered ninja who carried abilities either inherited from immigrants or dying bloodlines had been taken care of as well. The village was on complete lockdown at this point, seeing as three of the swords of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist were no longer in the possession of the village, and the ninja leader had grown too paranoid to allow anyone powerful to get anywhere near him.

In a way, it was a good thing that he was now a rogue. Playing off of Yagura's paranoia, there were never many squads available to hunt for the three rogue swordsmen, so he and the twins were never in that much danger. As such, the impromptu three-man squad had no trouble slipping out of the Land of Water into the adjacent Land of Waves. Using some of the money Zabuza had managed to bring with him, they were able to purchase some land in a forest and construct a rather comfortable tree house, well camouflaged amongst the trees. There they lived rather peacefully, taking odd jobs to make ends meet as mercenaries and hired ninja.

The lifestyle was fine, but Zabuza still pined to free the Hidden Mist Village from whoever was controlling Yagura, and such he began searching for jobs that paid well. He knew that he would need a lot of money and resources to start gathering ninja to his cause. What he had told the Fourth Mizukage in his office previously wasn't completely true. There were plenty of rumblings in the underground about how unsatisfied they were with the direction the village was taking, and he knew that with a little motivation, he could get a sizeable force under his command.

Zabuza was soon alerted to an opportunity that would pay more than enough money to kickstart his plan. The mission seemed simple enough. According to the man who was backing the directive, a diminutive head of a shipping conglomerate named Gatō, all he was required to do was neutralize a protection detail of a bridge builder. According to Gatō, the architect was threatening to damage everything his business stood for, and delivering him to the shipping CEO would solve all of Gatō's problems as well as delivering a sizeable payday to the former ninja swordsman.

…xXx…

_**The present day, a week after Gatō's fall in the Land of Waves**_

Zabuza and his two protégés stood on a cliff overlooking a sprawling plantation on the far side of the Land of Waves. Being assassins for hire for the slumlord had of course meant they were privy to the location of his headquarters, and now that he was gone from the world for good, it meant that he no longer needed it, and the three rogues could take it and use it for their own purposes.

"This will do nicely to get us started," he murmured softly. Flanked on either side by a twin, he looked at both of them in turn. "Starting today, we are no longer rogues, and we are not running away from the law. We are ninja of the Hidden Mist Village, and we will fight until we breathe our last to take back our village from that midget despot."

Shiro grinned in anticipation. "I cannot wait to stick my foot up that little runt's ass."

"Brother, please," her brother admonished him, before adding slyly, "He'll be too busy being frozen alive and buried underneath the sea for you to get anywhere near him."

"Cut it out, you two," their master said before grinning evilly, "There won't be a piece of him left larger than my pinkie when I get done with him. You'll just have to settle for whatever is left of the Seven Ninja Swordsman." Both twins chuckled lightly, and the stern expression returned to Zabuza's face. "Now, let's get to work. I imagine there are still quite a few henchmen down there that need to be cleared out before we can start using it as our base of operations." He flexed his arms, which were mostly healed from his fight with Kakashi, and unsheathed his sword. "Who's ready for a workout? Least number of kills has to make dinner…" Before he had even finished talking, both twins had disappeared from view. "I guess I earned that…it's about time I put those two in their place again." With a fiendish grin on his face, he leapt off of the cliff, hopeful for the first time in what seemed like forever.

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! I hope you liked my spin on Zabuza's backstory! This will be the last time he and the twins appear for a long time, though they may be mentioned in passing somewhat earlier.

**Review Responses:**

**Kronus96:** Thanks! He wasn't prepared for Mizuki to know things that he wasn't supposed to know. That's the only reason.

**justsomerealguy:** Thanks! No problem!

SPOILER TIME!

But that Naruto finale…OMG NARUTO'S DAUGHTER IS PRECIOUS. I can't stand how cute she is. I guess they had to do that in order to balance out how much of a shithead his son is. I do agree with Kishimoto's decision to make him that way as a sort of repeat of history, but still…kid's a mess.

Very happy with Naruto and Hinata, I can deal with Sasuke and Sakura, very happy with Shikamaru and Temari, pleasantly surprised with Kiba and Tamaki, Sai and Ino is kinda meh, and then holy shit, where did Chōji and Karui come from? Their daughter is actually pretty cool, along with her apparent BFF fat-Anko, but still, out of left field much?

There are a lot of loose ends (like where did Orochimaru slink off to?) but he covered all of the important aspects quite well, and I'm hoping that Kishimoto will cover some of the open storylines at a later date in interviews or something…like he could have done in the last databook (but apparently didn't want to). I'm somewhat mystified by the decision to release the 4th databook without including the last 5-10 chapters worth of information. It just seems to me that it would have been better just to clump all of that into one publication.


	7. (Kurosuki Gang 1) Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**AN:** Hope that this little side quest of sorts is enjoyable!

**(Kurosuki Gang) Chapter 6 – To the Village Hidden in Valleys! The Kurosuki Gang Strikes!**

"…and that's what happened, sensei. It was not at all what we expected, that's for sure," Kakashi explained. He was standing in the Hokage's office, giving his post-mission report for the Land of Waves mission. Minato was sitting behind his desk, patiently listening to his former student. A copy of the written report lay on his desk.

"Well, it certainly sounds like your team had a chaotic time on their trip," he replied, "I trust they learned some valuable lessons?" Kakashi nodded, though his eye was focused on his Icha Icha Paradise book in front of his face. Minato shook his head in amused disbelief. "Kakashi, are you listening to me?"

His student's visible eye looked up before he put the small book away with an obvious show of regret. "Yeah, yeah, I am. I worked with Sakura on her genjutsu. From what she described to me, she was aware of her potential in that area, but she was never encouraged to focus on it at the academy, and her parents wanted to her to forge her own path instead of blindly following their lead. She honestly seems to want to learn genjutsu in an official capacity, so she's been working with a scroll of some of her family's basic techniques."

Minato nodded, looking extremely impressed. "I'll be sure to tell Kizashi about that the next time I see him. I know he'll be pleased." Kakashi nodded distractedly, immersed once again in his book, but his teacher wasn't done with him yet. "Now…what about the boys?"

"You've probably already heard about it from him or Naruto, but Sasuke's Sharingan awakened during the trip, so starting with our next training session, I'll begin training him in its use. I had them spar against each other, with some restrictions on Naruto so that both of them could improve their skill hand to hand combat," the silver haired jōnin explained, and Minato nodded as he listened carefully. "Your son was locked into only a few clones and no chakra supplements, so he learned to fight without the crutch of his special abilities, and Sasuke was able to increase his speed and reaction time by fighting multiple opponents that were faster than him. Both of them showed improvement in those areas. As for their ninjutsu, I have nothing but good things to say. Both have shown a well rounded repertoire of techniques for their age and skill level, and I believe that Sakura will catch up to them before long. Her only limit at the moment is her chakra level, and that will improve after she trains with Naruto on a regular basis."

"Excellent!" the blond Hokage said happily, "Is there anything else?"

Kakashi looked thoughtful for a moment before something came to mind. "Actually, there is. I think my team deserves to have the mission upgraded to A-ranked for all of the trouble that we had to go through," he said bluntly, "Is it possible to get our pay increased to reflect that?"

Minato thought for a moment and nodded. "Yeah, I think that can be arranged. I'll deposit the pay into your account and deliver the rest of it to your students by myself."

"That sounds good. If that's all, sensei, I'll be off," and Kakashi disappeared in a poof of smoke.

_**A few days later…**_

"Yosh!" Rock Lee shouted enthusiastically, standing in front of the Hokage Tower alongside his teammates and jōnin leader. Though considered by many in the village to have taken after Might Guy a little too much in the way of fashion, none of those individuals could debate how much heart he had when it came to performing his missions to their fullest. "I cannot wait to take on this mission! It has been so long since I have left the village!" he continued, glancing around at his friends. "Where do you think we will be going, Neji?"

Hinata's cousin, dressed in his normal attire of formal, battle-ready Hyūga clan robes, cracked open one eye as he shrugged almost imperceptibly. "No idea. I do have to agree with you, though; it's been too long since we've had a challenging mission that wasn't in the Land of Fire. I wouldn't mind going to another country just to see some new scenery."

To his right, a kunai twirled around the finger of Tenten, who was also sporting her usual eastern-style outfit. "Don't be too eager to get out of the village, Neji," she admonished him. "Don't you remember what happened to Hatake Kakashi's team recently?"

The Hyūga youth nodded as he recalled a conversation from a couple of days prior. Lee, however, looked puzzled, his eyes continuing to dart back and forth between his friends before he asked, "I have not heard about this yet. Naruto, Sasuke, and I have not had a chance to spar recently."

"I managed to catch Naruto last Monday before he had to go find the daimyo's hellcat." Neji explained, smirking slightly at the thought of mix of personalities on Team 7 having to track down the miniature tiger. "He said when they were in the Land of Waves, instead of a handful of bandits like they were expecting, they ran into a rogue member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. They also had to deal with two rogue Mist chūnin brothers, and the ninja swordsman had two apprentices who were the last remaining members of the Kōsetsu clan that could use Ice Style ninjutsu." At this point, Lee's eyes were wide open, and even his hand which would normally be furiously scribbling down notes in his handy notebook was still. "On top of that, they also had an army of bandits and ne'er-do-wells under the command of Gatō , the corrupt shipping mogul, and somehow they managed to free the country from his rule while warding off the Mist ninja and come back alive."

The bowlcut genin took a few moments before he could shut his agape mouth and then exclaimed, "That is truly amazing!"

"That it is, my youthful apprentice!" Might Guy added, clapping a hand on Lee's shoulder, "But of course, I wouldn't expect anything less from my number one rival. He's trained his students well…not as well as my precious students, mind you, but they aren't bad!"

Tenten sighed in resignation. "That's all well and good, but couldn't they have brought back the sword?" she asked her team leader, "I would have loved to inspect that. I've heard each of the blades carried by the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist have different powers built into the metal that afford them various special powers."

"That's true…Naruto didn't say what happened to the swordsman and the two teens, he just over-embellished the fight like usual and said they got rid of Gatō and the bandits…" Neji mused, his gaze slowly swiveling towards the face of his sensei, whom he could tell knew something. "Anything you'd like to share, Guy-sensei?" he asked pointedly. Tenten and Lee both looked surprised but caught on fast once they saw the jōnin's expression.

"I will be happy to share that information with you…" he said grandiosely, and all three leaned in to listen. "…once you are jōnin yourselves!" Neji slapped his face with his hand, as did Tenten, while Lee just bounced on his heels, nodding energetically. "Come on, now, let's ignore that for the time being. The Hokage is expecting us." With that, he began to trot into the tower, with his body double following behind eagerly.

"Why do we put up with this on a daily basis?" the Hyūga prodigy groaned, beginning to walk at a leisurely pace towards the entrance, not at all concerned about being late given that they were ten minutes early.

"Come on now, you know you wouldn't know what to do without them," Tenten said, softly laying her hand on his arm. The teenaged male nodded in resignation and gave her a fleeting smile before pushing the door open, allowing his newfound lover to enter before he did as well and closed the door behind them.

Flashing their credentials at the visitors' desk, as was protocol, the two picked up their pace and hopped on the elevator to cut their travel time. As Neji punched the button for the top floor, Tenten wrapped her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder, and the Hyūga youth closed his eyes in a moment of peace.

When the bell rung, indicating their arrival, the two separated as the doors opened, revealing the other two members of Team Guy standing in front of the doors to the Hokage's office, chatting amicably with Hagane Kotetsu and Kamizuki Izumo. Seeing their approach, the bowlcut jōnin gave them a thumbs-up before turning to the guards. "Alright, my youthful friends, we're all here and ready to meet with the Hokage for our next mission," his booming voice called out, and no one there had any doubt that Minato could have heard that, even through the soft music leaking out through the door.

"He's finishing up lunch, but go on in," Kotetsu replied, confirming this with a glance towards his childhood friend, "He said he was free to talk whenever you arrived."

"Alrighty then," Guy nodded. "Let's go, team!" With that, he flung the doors open, earning himself two looks of exasperation from the chūnin guards, one of thinly veiled annoyance from Neji, and a slightly more amused smirk from Tenten.

Of course, being the individual that he was, Lee clenched his fist in excitement, a mighty "Yosh!" erupting from his mouth as he entered behind his sensei. Neji steeled himself and stiffly walked into the room, with his final teammate close behind.

Seated at one of the side tables were the Hokage and his son, with the remains of a light lunch scattered on the tabletop. At the loud exclamation, they both turned their heads to look at the new visitors to the office. "Always have to make a grand entrance, don't you, Lee?" Naruto chuckled, only half-teasing his taijutsu sparring partner.

"Ah, Naruto, it is great to see you!" the green-clad genin responded, rushing over to stand near the table. "We were just talking about your exploits in the Land of Waves!"

The younger blond in the room raised an eyebrow, quickly slurping down the last of his noodles before responding. "Oh really?"

"Funny you should mention that, Lee…" Minato added, standing up and stretching briefly before making his way over to his neatly organized desk. He quickly glanced at the mission folders laid out in order before grabbing the far right one. With a quick look, Guy strode over and took the proffered dossier, opening it up to examine it. The rest of his team crowded around him so they could see it as well, and even Naruto managed to poke his nose into the small scrum so he could see what the fuss was all about. "Piggybacking off Team 7's unexpected encounter with the rogue Momochi Zabuza in the Land of Waves," he began, instinctively switching over to the tone of voice usually reserved for more formal situations, "We have come to realize that there are some serious power issues within the Hidden Mist Village. At last count, there is only one of the previous generation of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist still present in the village, as all of the others are either dead or have defected."

He indicated that Guy should flip over to the next page, and he did just that, revealing a photocopy of a bingo book page. "One of the few that none of the Five Ninja Villages had been able to account for was Kurosuki Raiga, wielder of Kiba, the twin swords of lightning. After growing disenchanted with the rapid degradation of his village's power structure, as well as the gradual genocide of the village's kekkei genkai, he disappeared during a mission, leaving two of his fellow Swordsmen dead as a parting gift. No one has seen or heard of him since…until now."

He once more indicated that Guy turn to the next page, which displayed a picture and map of the Hidden Valleys Village. "Recently, the head jōnin of Valleys has been encountering trouble from a roving gang of bandits that have set up camp, seemingly for the long haul, in the next chasm over from the main town. Normally, this would be an internal issue that they could deal with easily, but a number of the bandits have used weapons imitating the powers of Kiba, and there have been rumors that even Raiga himself has been spotted amongst the band, which has named itself the Kurosuki Gang as a sort of homage to him."

Naruto squinted at that information. "Another one of those Seven Swordsmen guys?" he asked in disbelief, "What the heck is the Mizukage doing that all of those guys are ditching their own village? First Zabuza and now this guy." 

Minato nodded proudly at his son's perception of the situation. "That's a very astute observation, and one I'd like to investigate further. Guy." The bowlcut jōnin snapped to attention, setting the file down on the village leader's desk softly. "Barring something completely unexpected, this is not going to turn into a mission like Team 7's of a few weeks ago. You and your team are to head to the Hidden Valleys Village for the sole reason of neutralizing the bandit threat under the guidance of the head jōnin, Bonchi Taniko. You are not in any way to engage Kurosuki Raiga in a fight if he happens to be there, but if he is willing to speak with you, I want you to get as much information about the Hidden Mist Village out of him as you can."

"Forgive my impertinence, Lord Hokage…" Neji started after hesitating for a few moments, trying to find the right words to say things in a polite manner, "…this may come off as blunt or rude…"

"It's fine, Neji," Minato said, dispersing the tension with a smile, "Just say what you're thinking."

With approval in hand, the stern genin continued. "Alright then. What makes you think that Raiga will be amenable to sitting down over a cup of tea and chatting with us? If anything, he'll likely believe that we're there to kill or capture him for a bounty."

The elder blond nodded, again proud of the questioning nature of his genin. "That's where you come in, Guy." The taijutsu master's eyes narrowed, as if he was aware of where this conversation was going. "You are authorized to share with Kurosuki Raiga the contents of Team 7's mission, specifically the whereabouts of Momochi Zabuza as well as the twins in his care." That raised three sets of eyebrows in the room, who were all under the assumption that Zabuza was no longer a member of the living. "Of course, this is hopefully not a necessary step. He is inherently a pacifist and as such only resorts to force when he needs it to survive."

The Kyūbi jinchūriki, who had been listening to all of this, scowled. "Dang, Dad, this sounds like a fun mission. Why can't you have given that to us?" he complained.

"Because the daimyo's cat is loose again, and we all know how much it loves you." The young man scowled before lightly stomping over to his seat from lunch and sitting down, choosing to silently suck on water instead of poking his nose into a conversation that was unrelated to him.

Returning to his authoritative tone, Minato took a moment to look each of the members of Team Guy in the eye. "I know I'm asking a lot of you, especially for a C-ranked mission, but you are the most experienced genin squad that I have access to at the moment, and on the off-chance that this turns into a B-ranked mission or higher, I am confident in your ability to fulfill your primary objective." He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and checked the time briefly. "Given that it is about a 2 day trip, you can either leave tomorrow and get there by Friday, or if you leave today and push it, you might be able to get there by the end of the day tomorrow." Even though he knew the answer to that last part, he offered them his usual spiel. "If there are no questions, you are dismissed. Good luck, and keep me informed of any progress."

The four members of Team Guy nodded once and shuffled their way out of the Hokage's office, but not before catching Naruto's continued complaining, "But really Dad? That damn cat again? Hasn't the daimyo ever heard of a leash…?"

**Elsewhere, later that night, outside of the Hidden Valleys Village**

The Village Hidden in the Valleys was just as advertised, nestled deep within the mountains that formed a shared border with the Fire Country. The southernmost border of the village ran up against a sheer cliff that was hard to traverse and easy to misjudge. Given the depth of the ravine, it was next to impossible to see any outside threats, but the cliff more than took care of that, having been treated to repel chakra for many centuries by the ancestors of those living underneath it. As a result, no one ever looked up, expecting a foreign force to be present there.

However, this night was a little different. One with very astute eyes, perhaps a Hyūga or Uchiha, would only be barely able to discern the flickering embers of a dying fire at the top of the cliff. Four shadowy figures huddled around the flames, quite obviously not a crew of bandits. Dressed in ninja garb, each wore a headband proclaiming them as members of the Takumi Village, an unofficial collection of ninja that broke off from both the Hidden Sand and Rock Villages many years prior. They were known as craftsmen of weapons that performed feats the likes of which were unseen since the time of the five tools of the Sage of Six Paths, but their approach to mission etiquette was shaky at best, and many leaders were loathe to resort to hiring them.

One of them appeared to be the leader based on his position at the "head" of the fire. He had stringy, long brown hair coupled with a strong jawline and weary eyes. A large black sword, normally strapped to his back, lay on the ground next to him, revealing the embedded emerald gems. A female with two tone, shoulder length hair and two short swords, which lay next to her, joined him at the fire. The largest of the group had a wild look to him, with hair falling over his shoulders, the heaviest suit of armor in the group, and a large mace at his side. Finally, the youngest was a teenaged boy with blue hair and green eyes that searched for opportunities to prove his worth. His blue, scaled weapon of choice was more like a trident than a sword.

The lone female member of the team stretched out her back and craned her neck towards the leader. "So, Hōki…what's the plan here?" she queried. The other two males remained still, but their eyes shifted towards the lone chūnin of the group.

A slight chuckle emerged from the throat of the man named Hōki. "What have we always done?" he replied hollowly, his voice betraying his weariness, "We persevere. We are all that's left of a dying breed. The Takumi Village is but a mere myth to many of the ignorant fools who run around, pretending to be ninja while they use weapons that were originally purchased from the smiths of our village. Now, after famine and the rise of heavy industry, we have nothing left but revenge to fuel our days if we hope to return our village to its rightful state."

"Those fools won't know what hit them…" the youngest boy snapped impetuously.

"No…no, they will not…" Hōki replied slowly, his expression shifting from angry to thoughtful, "…but that will come later. First, more than anything, we need money and some influence in which to power our mission…which is where the Hidden Valleys' problems become our profit."

The large man, who was having to hunch over in order to both be a part of the group and receive any warmth from the fire in the autumn night, snorted. "Your plan is a daring one, if nothing else, my friend. What makes you think the Kurosuki gang will be so willing to join us?"

"It's less about the Kurosuki gang as a whole than the man pulling the strings," the team leader replied slowly, picking up the bowl containing the remnants of his dinner and rolling them around. "Despite the fact that Hidden Mist smiths forged Kiba, they would still be a valuable weapon if we could get our hands on them, but I don't think we're powerful enough to kill him outright."

"So what's the point?" the woman asked skeptically, twirling one of her yellow bangs around her finger. "We sucker Valleys into giving us some of their ninja as cannon fodder?"

"You've got it, Kujaku." Hōki slowly picked himself off the ground, making sure to grasp his sword as he went. He turned away from them and walked a few steps over to his sleeping bag. The stringy-haired man propped the massive sword against a nearby tree before shucking his shoes and sliding into his sleeping sleeve. "Everyone get some sleep. We've got a long day tomorrow, and we don't need to let anything take us by surprise." The other three remnant ninja of the Takumi Village nodded silently and went about their own nightly routines, each thinking about how the day they rose once more.

**Friday night, in the office of the lead jōnin of the Hidden Valleys Village**

Team Guy stood at attention in the small but clean office of Bonchi Taniko, a short woman in the same age range as Guy. They had arrived a few hours prior and had already checked into their hotel. While Neji and Tenten caught a quick nap, Lee took advantage of the hotel's fitness facilities, and Guy departed to train on his own for an hour or so.

The leader of Hidden Valleys wasn't overweight by any means, but any astute person could see she was built like a tank, with no spare fat visible on any part of her body. Her dirty blonde hair was braided and lying over her shoulder, and her not unattractive face was marred only by a cross-shaped scar covering her right eye, though the organ was still operational as both orbs examined her hired help. The customary form of dress here was slightly heavier due to the northern climate and the presence of the village in a highly shaded area. Taniko's office was bare of any personal items, barring an impressive rack of mining tools that could also be used as weapons in an emergency.

"Might Guy…it is a pleasure to meet you," the shorter woman said amicably, her voice a befitting deeper tone than what one might expect. "I have heard much about your abilities and exploits in the field."

"As I have about you," the normally boisterous jōnin replied in a much more subdued tone, clasping the proffered hand and shaking it firmly. "I look forward to working with you to eliminate the threat of the Kurosuki gang to your village."

Taniko's face darkened, and her features contorted into a slight snarl. "Ah, yes, let's get right down to business, shall we? Do you mind introducing your team to me?"

"Of course!" Now Guy was somewhat back into his normal energetic mode, having an opportunity to show off his wonderful students. Gesturing to each one, he presented them to the female village leader. "First is my personal protégé and one of the great taijutsu users in the entire leaf village, Rock Lee!" The equally energetic genin was a bubbly mess as he stepped forward to shake Taniko's hand, and she couldn't help but feel lighter at heart in his presence. "Next is one of the true prodigies, Hyūga Neji, who is nearly unparalleled at his age in his use of his clan's Jūken!" The stoic teen, never a fan of Guy's unorthodox introductions, nevertheless let his etiquette training take over to greet the Valleys leader. "And last but certainly not least, maybe the most talented genin in our village when it comes to the use of weapons, Tenten!" Like her boyfriend, the bun-haired girl mostly ignored Guy's exuberance and quickly shook the blonde's hand.

"Excellent," Taniko nodded, obviously impressed. "I'm sure you will be able to at least drive the bandits away or reduce their numbers such that they won't be encouraged to come back."

"You said in your missive to Lord Hokage that they were in the next valley over from the main village?" Guy queried.

The Valleys jōnin nodded, walking back over to her desk and pulling out a topographical map. She laid it across the bare surface and indicated that Team 9 join her, which they did, crowding around the desk. Taniko pointed to a ravine that was marked as the main village area and then moved her finger east to another unmarked chasm. "The reason we've been having so much trouble with them is because the valley that they are currently setting up camp in was the site of the original village, but a landslide and poor planning on the part of our predecessors scrapped the plans. However, we kept a passage through the mountain in case we needed access to the older buildings, armed with a state of the art security system. However, something shorted the system out about two weeks ago, which is rather remarkable considering that we outfitted it with the best surge protectors that we could find. Now, it's nearly every night that those heathens are in our village, stealing our belongings and food as well as tormenting the women like the hogs they are." Her expression darkened at that last part. "They haven't done anything…reprehensible yet, but I don't want it to reach that point…"

Guy nodded vigorously, his own features looking disgusted. "I understand fully, ma'am. How do you want us to approach ridding these ruffians from your land?"

"Probably the best approach would be to stake out the tunnel," she replied, once more indicating the passage on the map just for clarification. "It's not very large, and there's only one of them, so there shouldn't be any way for them to get around you. Additionally, the majority of them haven't exhibited any significant ninja or chakra-related abilities, though we have reports that there may be a ninja in their midst that we haven't seen yet."

"Excellent, that is the same intel we received as well," Guy nodded, looking to his team for similar confirmation and receiving it. "Now, the last order of business is backup. I don't believe that we will have any issue with dealing with these bandits, but your letter mentioned backup on the off chance of anything going wrong."

"Oh yes, they should be here already. Give me one moment." Taniko reached across the table and tapped her intercom. "Send in the Takumi team, if you'd please, Regina." After hearing an affirmative response, the door opened a couple of seconds later. Four ninja shuffled into the now cramped office space. All wore a variation of a purple cloth uniform, with unique weapons visible on each as well as a peculiar headband that the genin had never seen before. The leader of the team, a droopy-eyed man, bowed to Taniko once the door slid shut behind him. "Might Guy and Team 9 of the Hidden Leaf Village, allow me to introduce you to Hōki and his team from the Takumi Village. When we were exploring our options to rid our village of these robbers, his team graciously came forward and offered to assist in the removal efforts." Neji's eyes narrowed momentarily, but he didn't say anything.

"A true pleasure," the swordsman said almost immediately, walking over and holding his hand out to the bowlcut jōnin. "I have heard much about your exploits, Might Guy."

"As I you and your village," he replied, returning the handshake, "Your blacksmiths are the finest in the land, and having personally used some of your village's weapons, I can say that they are exquisitely constructed."

"You flatter me and our village," Hōki said demurely, deflecting the praise, though his tone held an edge of something that wasn't quite identifiable. "But we aren't here to lavish praise on each other, are we? It's getting late, and I would not want to miss our window of opportunity to get the jump on these ruffians. Lady Bonchi, shall we head down to the tunnel?"

"Yes, our friend from the Takumi Village has a good point," Taniko said, checking her watch and standing up. "There is a passage down to the tunnel from the lobby of this building. If you all would follow me…?" She walked past all of them, opened the door to the office, and strode out and down the barely visible stairs. Guy and Hōki followed her, continuing to engage in friendly conversation even as they walked behind the Valleys leader. The other three ninja garbed in purple were quick to shadow the older chūnin, along with Lee, and despite the efforts of the bubbly genin to talk with the foreign ninja, they were not in the least interested in chatting with him. Still, he continued to try to no avail.

Finally, Neji and Tenten brought up the rear. As the weapons master closed the door behind her, her paramour grabbed her hand and indicated with a look to hang back a little, out of earshot of the Takumi squad. "What's wrong?" she whispered as they began their somewhat slower descent.

The male teen held up his hand until the echo of voices disappeared down the staircase completely. "Something doesn't seem right to me," he muttered, "I can't quite place my finger on it, but those ninja from…where was it?"

"The Takumi Village!" And Tenten promptly swatted his arm, looking disappointed. "Come on, Neji! I know you've heard me talk about their blacksmiths at least twenty times…" Her voice trailed off as she saw the smirk on his face, and that resulted in two more swats of the arm. "You're a real piece of work, and I have no idea why I put up with you."

"I'm just giving you a hard time," he replied softly before rubbing his arm, "but I am impressed by how much those hits hurt. That's impressive. Guy-sensei's Gōken training must work well for you." They reached the bottom of the staircase, and both teenagers peered out into the small lobby, bereft of windows, just in time to see figures dressed in brown, purple, and green entering a door near the back of the room. They quickly rushed over as the portal was swinging shut and slipped in, being greeted by almost near darkness.

"There are lights at the bottom of the shaft, but we keep the passageway dark to confuse any potential invaders," the voice of Taniko floated up the stairs. "Unfortunately, we have yet to find the tunnel that the bandits bored out to enter the village, and our inability to do that is what's primarily leading me to believe the presence of a ninja in their midst." A few murmurs and grunts of assent followed before the group plunged into silence.

"Anyways…" Neji continued once they had enough distance to whisper safely, he and Tenten clasping arms to ensure their safety. "…these Takumi ninja…they're here for a reason, and I'm not convinced it's a good one."

The bunhaired girl gave him an obviously skeptical look. "What on Earth would lead you to that?" she queried in confusion.

"Look at the situation. Lady Bonchi said it herself; they offered their services before Hidden Valleys had even reached out to any other groups. Why would they do that?" Tenten was left to ponder that as Neji continued. "There's also the matter of the Takumi Village. I'm not as involved in politics as my cousins, but I hear things, and I could have sworn I heard my father and uncle talking about what a shame it was that the Takumi Village was bankrupt and nearly in ruins after being such a world power in weapons development."

"Really?" That was shocking to the weapons master, as she hadn't heard anything along those lines. "When did that happen?"

"It was a couple of months ago. The main group of Takumi ninja had a post near the Rock/Sand border, but a combination of a massive sandstorm in the summer and a blizzard in the winter crippled them. I heard almost all of their metal refineries were destroyed, and many of the ninja lost their lives trying, and failing, to protect their weapons manufacturing facilities. All that's left are a few stragglers and the civilians that managed to survive. It's a dire situation there."

"So wouldn't that explain why they're trying to find money? I would be venturing out too if I had lost everything."

"You'd think, but that guy Hōki…something about his demeanor screams ulterior motives." Neji paused for a moment, briefly racking his memory, trying to find a point in the brief interactions they shared that seemed overtly odd, but he quickly realized it was more of a sense than anything. "I don't know, maybe it's nothing, but this feels strange."

"I can't sense anything off, but then again, your intuition is usually right in these situations." Tenten patted his forearm briefly before picking up her pace ever so slightly. "Let's go, I can barely see Guy-sensei's flashlight. Everything will be okay. It always is. Try not to let it bother you." The longhaired young man looked at her for a moment before smiling at her, even though it was unlikely she could see it.

Hustling down the few remaining stairs and seeing the light of the tunnel ahead of them, they quickly rejoined the rest of their group. As they walked over, Lee's seemingly permanent wide-eyed look focused on the two of them. "There you are, my friends!" he said in a much louder than needed tone. "Were you lagging behind because you were celebrating your youthful union in privacy?"

Tenten turned an uncharacteristic shade of red, while Neji scowled darkly and hissed, "Not the time or place, Lee."

"That's right, my youthful apprentice. Don't go around spreading tales," Guy admonished his mini-me. "They aren't in a 'union,' as you said." The Hyūga prodigy silently said thank you for a rare moment of clarity from his instructor. "They are simply in the throes of youthful relationship, that's all, and I couldn't be happier!"

Okay, maybe he hadn't changed one bit.

Taniko coughed to regain control of the area. "If we're through discussing the love lives of your students, Guy, shall we go over routes and shifts…?" Reverting back to his serious, mission leader demeanor, Guy nodded, and the other three genin did as well, though two of them were still slightly flustered.

The short leader nodded firmly once she had all of their attention. "Alright then, as you can tell, this passage is not the largest of tunnels, but there is certainly enough room here for a possible engagement if needed. That being said, try to keep any fights to a minimum in terms of destructive abilities; these walls are tempered to withstand the weight of the mountain on top of it, but chakra-based techniques, or in the case of our taijutsu associates here, chakra-empowered physical abilities, are more than enough to cave in the walls and ceiling, so try to be careful. I'm hopeful that you won't have to deal with anyone that would require your utmost best, but we are also somewhat lacking in information about our enemy."

Everyone nodded, and the Leaf ninja were all thinking about the possibility of Kurosuki Raiga making an appearance before the mission ended. The Takumi ninja named Hōki stepped forward. "Lady Bonchi, I believe we will be fine. I believe the possibility of any ninjas being a part of this uncouth band of misfits is almost nil. You can trust that we will take care of this in a manner that is beneficial to all parties involved." he said smoothly, receiving nods of confirmation from his own team. Neji once more had a shiver of something run through his body, but he couldn't place it any more than he could before. "Now, it is getting quite late, and these bandits do like to strike late at night. It would be best for you to head back to the village, don't you think? We can handle shifts and the like by ourselves."

"That's fine with me." The blonde leader looked much more shaken than she likely would have liked. "After what some of them have threatened to do to my kunoichi, I don't want to be anywhere near them. I will leave my cell phone number here if you have to contact me, but I will be somewhat limited in what support I can offer." She handed slips of paper with the proffered number to both Hōki and Guy before swiftly walking back to the staircase. "I wish you all luck. I hope this is nothing but an easy repulsion mission of some random thugs," she said before disappearing into the gloom.

Guy nodded, his eyes lingering on the darkness where she disappeared for a moment. "Good woman, that Bonchi Taniko," he murmured before turning back to the rest of the group. "So how are we going to do this? I think it would be good if…"

"We'll handle the far end of the tunnel. You can guard the village," Hōki interrupted. "We should be more than capable of handling the threats."

"Are you sure about that?" Neji interjected, stepping forward with a questioning look on his face. "Shouldn't we all head towards that end? Power in numbers and blocking off their access is more useful than spreading our numbers thin."

"No, we can handle it." The tone of Hōki's voice indicated that he wasn't in the mood to debate; the welcoming, sickly sweet tone from earlier was gone and replaced by a harsh rasp. "We'll be in touch if we need help," he threw over his shoulder as the group of Takumi ninja left, moving quickly to prevent any further conversation.

Once they were out of eyesight, Guy turned to his genin squad, and all three could tell he was suspicious of the Takumi group as well. "Well, this is interesting," he said softly. "What do you think of this?"

"It sounds rather fishy to me, Guy-sensei!" Lee immediately piped up. "Their strategy doesn't seem to make any sense! I agree with Neji; we would be better off teaming up, even if the threat turns out to be minor."

"So do I." Only the Hyūga youth was unfazed by this. "But…at the same time, we have no choice but to wait." The jōnin glanced at his most intelligent student. "So this is what you were talking about with Tenten, isn't it? It is a curious conundrum."

"Guy-sensei, how long have you suspected something?" Tenten asked, somewhat surprised by his observation.

The rather goofy leader grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. "You didn't think those pleasantries were real, were they? No, I was playing their little game. That's what they want, and I see no reason to deny them their pleasure at believing us to be fools."

"Still, should we just be standing here?" Lee pressed him, putting his notebook away in a moment of clarity. "They are getting closer to the bandits every second that we let him go!"

Guy's immediate response was to kneel down and unbuckle his folded nunchucks. "Kurosuki Raiga, if he's there, won't go far," he said confidently, unbuckling the hard rods into a more battle-friendly formation. "And if I'm not mistaken, we should be hearing our call to action before too long…"

At almost the exact moment that he said that, a massive explosion ripped through the tunnel. Cascades of rock showered down from the ceiling and walls, and the four members of Team Guy had to put their arms up to block the inevitable cloud of dust. The blast reverberated down the passage, and everyone present was tensing in case the rest of the tunnel decided to implode as well, but after a couple of seconds of calm, past the still shifting rocks a few dozen yards away, they cautiously let down their guard to see what had happened.

"Well, they certainly know how to make an entrance…" Tenten muttered, somewhat in awe of the destructive power of the Takumi ninja. "Or, I guess in this case, an exit. Is there any way we can get around this without destabilizing the entire corridor or do we need to find another way around?"

Neji peered at the pile of rocks and earth before activating his Byakugan silently to probe further into the mess. It took him about three minutes, but he eventually turned off his ocular technique and turned to his teammates with as happy a look as he could muster. "Guy-sensei, Lee," he said, addressing the two green-clad ninjas on the team. "We can get around this one of two ways, but the faster of the two requires you to ease your restriction on _**that**_ technique. You could move all of them by hand, or you could use _**that**_ particular move to push them all to the side, but the former is by far the slower of the two."

"Guy-sensei, I have no problem trying out my mastery of _**that**_ technique, as long as you don't have a problem with me breaking your rule!" Lee added, clenching his fist in anticipating of proving himself.

The eldest Leaf ninja present looked at his three students and was proud of their growth. Once they got through this, he was for sure suggesting to the Hokage that they be eligible to take the Chūnin Exams that were being held in a few weeks in the Hidden Leaf Village. Smiling, he said, "Let's do it, Lee. We'll show all of these ruffians the true power of the Strong Fist!"

"Yosh!"

_**At the Kurosuki Gang hideout, a kilometer or two away, around an hour later**_

"Urgh!" a bandit cried out as he fell to the ground, bleeding from three puncture wounds in his chest. The profuse bleeding was all but a death sentence for him, as was the case for many of the common thugs lying around.

The four Takumi ninja stood in the middle of what passed for a camp, though it was more like the scene of genocide now. With the exception of some of the braver and more powerful bandits who lurked on the outskirts with their rusty swords and knives drawn in a defensive pose, most of the 'problem' that Bonchi Taniko had warned them about lay dead or dying on the rocky ground of the mountain valley. "This is pathetic," Hōki muttered, kicking one of the bodies at his feet and receiving a pained and fading groan in response. "Why in the hell would Kurosuki Raiga choose such pathetic losers as a 'gang?'

"That's what happens when you're a rogue, I guess," the woman named Kujaku replied flippantly. "You take what you can get. Still, this is kind of sad, isn't it?"

The shortest and youngest of the four, who held the three-pronged weapon that had killed the dying thug, swung his arm out. The three blue-tinted sword blades shot out like dueling snakes and pierced through the hearts of three separate men who were trying to crawl to safety. "I'm getting bored," he whined, turning to his associates with a peevish look on his face. "When is this guy going to show up?" He glanced at the tall, brutish Takumi ninja but was ignored for the most part.

However, someone else wasn't ignoring them, as a deep, rumbling voice emanated through the camp, "This is quite the surprise…I was expecting some Valleys ninja to kick us out, not some also-rans from a dying village. What business do you have here?"

"We know it's you, Kurosuki Raiga," Hōki raised his voice to address the bodiless tone, "We're here to talk."

"Oh?" the bandit leader almost sounded amused. "From the looks of things, you're not here to do much talking. It looks a lot like Valleys sent you here to get rid of us, judging by the state of my men."

"No shit, you moron," the kid, Ryūgan, muttered before receiving an elbow in the side from Kujaku.

"What my associate meant was that while we were hired by Valleys to investigate your camp…" Hōki added quickly, making sure to smudge the truth in a favorable way, "…we provided our services to them in order to have a private meeting with you. We had no intention of attacking your men, but then again, they didn't really leave us much choice, and we were only acting to defend ourselves."

There was a long pause before the voice spoke up once more. "I don't think that's wholly accurate given that you are ninja and these were but common thieves and bandits, but I am somewhat curious about your motivations, so I'll play your silly little game for the time being."

"But of course, we wouldn't want to antagonize you with our presence and disruptive behavior any more than we have to," Hōki replied, swiftly reverting back to the sickly sweet, buttering voice that he had used previously with Taniko, "But it would be much more convenient if we could have this conversation face to face, don't you think?

"Just so we understand where we all stand…" Raiga started, "I don't trust you. Period. I haven't trusted anyone in a long time, and I'm not about to start putting my faith in a bunch of random shinobi who barge into my camp asking for a meeting, so you had better start talking or I'll show myself in a way that will be very unpleasant for the four of you."

"Of course, of course," the grey haired chūnin stammered out, still trying to put on his façade of friendliness but failing. "I admit, we went somewhat overboard in dealing with these thugs you have gathered to work under your name, but a large part of it was to show off our strength and the power of the Takumi Village to you, one who wields a weapon forged with our metal and chakra, in an effort to impress you and prove our worth to your cause."

"And what cause would that be?" Again, the voice sounded amused, as if Raiga was trying to bait them into making a mistake.

"Striking back against those who wronged you, of course!" Hōki was back to a more energetic state. "A sort of mutual exchange, if you will."

"Ah, so what you're trying to do is use me to power your own selfish cause, is that it?"

"Not in those terms, no, but we are prepared to offer our own formidable strength to aid in your own dreams of revenge against the Mizukage," the Takumi village ninja said quickly, again trying to keep the upper hand.

Once more, Raiga didn't speak for a long time, and this time the pause was so long that all four of the weapons masters were beginning to get nervous. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he responded with, "If we're going to go into business together, your earlier assertion is true – we should meet, face to face, in order to discuss terms and plans."

"Thank you, sir!" Hōki said ecstatically, "We will not disappoint, I will assure you of that."

"Don't wet yourself, Takumi ninja, I haven't agreed to anything yet; I just want to hear your thoughts more, and then we can decide on a deal." There was some shuffling at the other end of the camp, and all four foreigners turned to look that way. Given how dark it was, they were hard-pressed to see through the gloom with only the dying embers of the campfires to aid them, but slowly, a large figure came into view. By far the tallest person they had encountered on the trip, he was covered from the neck down in bandages, over which he wore a dark sleeveless vest and light grey slacks. He had some sort of large backpack strapped to his back, and quite notably, his twin swords hung on each side of his brown belt. His expression was neutral, but he did survey each of the Takumi ninja with a careful eye.

Hōki stepped forward so that he was only a few feet away from the imposing figure. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you in person, Kurosuki Raiga," he said silkily, sticking out his hand in greeting while his other reached behind his back. Quietly, the other three also began to inch their hands towards their respective weapons, using the gloom of the night to hide their movements.

Raiga stared at him impassively before he slowly raised his arm…

…xXx…

AN: Please review and stay tuned!


	8. (Kurosuki Gang 2) Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Team Guy met up in front of the Hokage Tower before a mission, discussing what they might believe their mission to be. One of the options discussed was something similar to Team 7's mission involving Momochi Zabuza, with Tenten expressing her disappointment that they didn't bring back the sword. As they entered the Hokage's office, they walked in on the end of Minato and Naruto's lunch, and the younger blond stuck around as Minato told them they would be aiding the Hidden Valleys Village by purging a growing band of mercenaries that may include Kurosuki Raiga, a member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist that grew disenchanted with his village and disappeared. Upon arriving at the village, they met with the village leader, an old associate of Guy's named Bonchi Taniko, who described their plight before revealing there was another team involved who had volunteered their services from the nearly defunct Takumi Village. They traveled into the tunnels where the bandits usually attacked, and once Taniko left, the Takumi ninja hijacked the operation, raiding the camp while trapping the Leaf ninja behind a pile of collapsed rock. Hōki, the leader of the squad, managed to convince Raiga to a meet, and he finally revealed himself to the Takumi ninja at long last…

**AN:** Hopefully these are enjoyable!

**(Kurosuki Gang) Chapter 7 – Raiga Appears! The Takumi Ninja Reveal Their True Colors!**

The towering figure that was Kurosuki Raiga tightly clasped the hand of Hōki, and even the weathered ninja couldn't help but wince slightly at the tight grip. "Oh dear…that's a strong grip you have there my friend," he chuckled nervously. His eyes attempted to meet those of his hopeful ally, but the intense stare was too much. "Well…I guess if we're in agreement, we can begin to discuss terms…"

Raiga remained dormant, and after a few seconds of pregnant silence, Hōki decided to pull his hand back…only to find out that the former Ninja Swordsman wasn't willing to let go. "Um…Raiga, if you would please…?" he asked with a hint of pleading.

Finally, the bulky, bandaged man opened his mouth to utter, "My deepest apologies…"

"Well, it's really not that much of a…ARGH!" Hōki's attempt at neutral banter was quickly interrupted, as the hand flung him straight towards his men. His flailing limbs clipped both Ryūgan and Kujaku before all three crashed into the giant, Suiko, who had to stagger backwards from the weight of three bodies.

"My deepest apologies for not believing a single word of the drivel that you've been spouting ever since you got here," the wielder of Kiba hissed, swiftly drawing his two sword blades. "Begone, you worthless scum. Raisō – Ikazuchi no Utage (Lightning Burial – Banquet of Lightning)!" Quickly reversing his grip on the two swords, he stabbed them into the ground and pumped his chakra through the newly created conduits. Quickly, twin lightning bolts erupted across the ground like dueling snakes, darting towards the downed Takumi squad.

Despite his somewhat addled state, Hōki managed to spit out, "Evasion tactics! Suiko, take point!" The giant grunted and leapt in front of his downed teammates just as Kujaku and Ryūgan exploded smoke pellets behind him. The long-haired man sheathed his mace in the holder behind his back as he charged his chakra, causing the eyes of the tiger shaped shield on his chest to glow brightly.

"You're not getting by me, you fool," he grunted, "My shield is impenetrable."

"Then I hope you don't mind if I try," Raiga spat in reply, supercharging his technique just as the bolts reached the giant. He grinned, thinking that he had the upper hand, but his smile quickly turned upside down as he observed his lightning bolts get sucked into the mouth of the artificial cat. Despite this, the swordsman continued to channel nearly dangerous amounts of chakra into his Lightning Funeral, but the only thing he was accomplishing was tiring himself out.

Finally, after a minute of trying, the defector disengaged the technique, breathing much harder than he was expecting. Scanning the field in front of him, he took note of the fact that the three other Takumi ninja were now gone, as well as that Suiko was noticeably bulkier than his previous muscular tone had indicated. The brute noticed Raiga's slight confusion and smirked. "Like my Infinite Armor? Those long distance lightning techniques won't do much…then again, anything you try won't do anything, while my armor continues to feast on your stupidity, and I reap the benefits of your chakra."

"And again, I hope you don't mind if I keep trying," the rogue spat, crossing his blades in front of his face before muttering the name of his next technique – "Raikyū (Lightning Ball)!" Raising the swords to the sky, a ball of electricity began to coalesce between the tips, crackling and growing in size until it was over three feet wide. "If you'd like to try to stop this with that piddly little armor of your's, you are more than welcome to try!" he roared before pulling back the sword in his right hand and flinging his arm forward, sending the bundle of electrons flying towards Suikō.

The burly ninja smirked, not even bothering to move from his position save for puffing out his chest. The plasma orb visibly slowed to a halt as it approached the mouth of the metal tiger before it began to shrink to almost nothing. As occurred before when the chakra-absorbing armor, the energy obviously didn't remain simply in the garment but rather diffused throughout the body of the cocky Takumi ninja, causing a new increase in muscle density. Now, Raiga noted silently, he was starting to look somewhat absurd, and he pondered how he could damage him without using chakra…

'_Your swords aren't just for lightning…_' That disembodied voice nearly caused him to slap his face in frustration. Of course, he was a swordsman, not just a ninja; he didn't need to use chakra to beat an opponent. With that realization in hand, he dashed forward, loosely grasping both of his swords at his side.

"I don't know why you think this is going to work any better than before," the giant roared, flexing his fists in preparation and apparently not recognizing the third party present in the fight, "Your chakra will be your downfall!" With a snarl, he reared back his left arm and swung downwards along the path that Raiga was dashing…but the Mist rogue wasn't there. Despite the large backpack-like sack on his back, his years of medically-enhanced training back at home kept his movement at its peak, and he was easily able to evade the slow guillotine chop.

Now, at his opponent's exposed side, he raised both of his swords as if they were axes, with the extra spine near the end of the blade pointing downwards. He swiftly brought them down, and with an awful squelching sound embedded them in his enemy's shoulder. "Argh! That fucking hurts, you piece of shit!" Suikō roared, "Get the hell off of me!"

"Not likely," Raiga replied almost flippantly, "Be gone from my life. Kandenshi Matsuri (Electrocution Festival)!" Instead of releasing his chakra externally, he channeled it down the metal of his blades, where it would release only when it reached the end of the sword, which was embedded in his enemy's body.

The Takumi behemoth began to roar in pain, but that only lasted a few seconds before his anguished cries slowly began to turn into a low chuckle. It took a moment before he could regain control of his short circuited nerves and muscles, but once he did, it was almost no issue for him to reach up and grasp the swords in his shoulder and wrench them free. As an added benefit, he continued the momentum in his arm and flung Raiga back towards his camp. The longhaired rogue managed to contort his body such that he didn't land on his back, once more taking care to not let his back come into any harm.

"Good Lord, what is this guy made of?" he muttered to himself, noting that the electricity dissipated almost immediately and was transformed into even more chakra-generated muscle. Suikō now resembled a gorilla more than a human, complete with extraneous hair now becoming extremely visible on his arms and legs. "Not to sound like a petulant child, but are you planning on using my chakra for anything, or are you happy with the underdeveloped primate look?" the swordsman asked aloud, hoping to get a rise out of his enemy.

"Oh no, I'm going to use it," was the sinister reply, "I'm going to use your own chakra to tear you apart, bit by squished up little bit. Just watch." With that, he reached behind his back with some difficulty and unlatched the as of yet unused mace from its holster.

As he began to pump chakra into it, the metal began to warp and expand at a similar rate to his bulging muscles contracting back to their normal size. It was a somewhat slow process, and as such, Raiga's attention was captured by a small voice once more. '_They're coming…they got past the rockslide…'_

"Excellent," Kurosuki replied, his mouth turning upwards, "What say we let them deal with this, eh?" His eyes shifted a little bit to a point over his enemy's shoulder, where he barely could detect a flash of green approaching at a rapid pace.

"Gone crazy, or are you muttering your last prayers before you die?" Suikō asked in a taunting fashion a few moments later, lifting with surprising ease the now massive mace into the air. "Even one glancing hit from this beast, and you'll be wishing you had never been born."

"Oh, is that so?" Raiga replied in an equally taunting tone, going so far as to sheath his blade and put his hands up in mocking surrender. "Now you've made me curious. Show me what you can do with that oversized bowling ball, you giant sack of bullshit. No wonder your village is almost dead, your weapons are about as useful as a pacifier. I bet you can't even make it five feet before you fall over from lugging that around."

The Takumi ninja's face quickly grew dark as his anger level spiked dangerously, and he spat out, "I'll show you bullshit, you maggot. No one insults the Takumi Village and gets away with it. You hear me? NO ONE!" He swung his arms around, presumably to put the mace in a position where he could 'run' with it, but he never got the chance.

A rustle of the grass at his feet caused him to look down, and he was forced to abandon the grip on his massive melee weapon to avoid the cluster of explosive tagged kunai that encircled the place he was just standing. He hissed in annoyance at losing his mace as his ascend was briefly buoyed by the blast, but that was quickly driven from his mind when he realized there were two green flashes that were closing in on him quickly. Dual shouts of "Dynamic Entry!" were the last things he heard before two feet collided with his face, sending him plummeting back towards the ground.

Neji had been calmly walking over to where Tenten had thrown the kunai, and he glanced up to time his attack correctly. As the now unconscious cocky Takumi ninja was only a few inches from the ground, the Hyūga's hands flashed out a number of times in a blur and disabled most of Suikō's major chakra nodes, basically rendering him useless for a few days.

Guy and Lee landed next to their teammate as Tenten walked over to stand on his other side, and together they faced the Mist rogue, who looked down impassively. "Dumb ass didn't realize his armor wasn't always protecting him," he spat at the limp form of his opponent before turning his attention to the Leaf squad. "While I'm impressed by the moves you put on, especially those taps by you, Hyūga brat, I hope you're not expecting a thank you from me because I really wasn't planning on it," he said indifferently, crossing his arms casually.

"Well, to be honest, we were, but a touch of respect to the son of the man who nearly got you killed would be nice," Guy replied lightly, his face not showing any sign of pain or sorrow but his tone leaving no room for debate.

"The eternal genin, right? I was just a punk back then, no older than you," Raiga murmured, reminiscing about the same time, "I didn't know any better. I just blindly followed orders, not thinking about the repercussions, killing anyone who stood in my way without a thought of what the repercussions might be." He walked over and appraised Guy through slightly squinted eyes. "While I know this is no replacement for your father, I can tell you that I had no part in that. The two men you would be searching for are no longer alive, and their replacements are out of reach to you."

"Funny you should mention that, because that's what we traveled here to discuss with you," the green-clad jōnin replied, pulling out a flash drive from his backpack. He handed it to the rogue, who peered at it in thinly veiled confusion. "If I recall correctly, one of the apprentices of the two men you were referring to was Momochi Zabuza, and the other Hoshigaki Kisame?" The wide-eyed former Mist jōnin's eyes grew larger still before he nodded in appreciation.

"You're not as dumb as you look, Might Guy," Raiga replied, blatantly ignoring Lee's squawks of protest. "I lost track of that first guy long time ago, around the time that I retrieved my swords from my own apprentice. Him and Kisame both went the same route that I did, right? Though I heard Kisame went back to the village after Yagura all but begged him to help him out."

"That's what I heard as well," Guy nodded, "That country whose leader was assassinated by him got annexed by the Mist Village in the end, so technically he didn't do anything wrong. And Zabuza was set up by the Mizukage's heir as a fall guy for the massacres of the kekkei genkai-bearing clans."

"How on Earth do you know that?" Now Raiga was truly interested, as the large man slowly unsheathed his backpack and set it down on the ground very carefully.

"_I would like to know that as well…_" the ethereal voice from before spoke out, this time from the backpack.

That startled Tenten and Lee, but Neji, unfazed as usual, simply activated his Byakugan to see where the source of it was coming from before smiling at the rogue's little secret. Guy continued as if nothing was out of the ordinary. "That's what's on the flash drive. It's classified, which is why I can't talk about it in front of my youthful students here, but rest assured, you need to access that information as soon as possible so we can collaborate."

"I'm afraid we can't let you do that!" a voice rung out from the trees circling the village. All of the members of Team Guy recognized the tone as the voice of Hōki, and only Lee was in the slightest mood to give them a fight; Tenten and Neji both groaned quietly in disgust.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me," Raiga groaned aloud, swinging his head around to look at the source of the taunting tone. "I know you were there the whole time watching, so you had to see how fast we dismantled your bird-brained teammate over here!"

A chuckle emanated from the woods. "No, I saw you waste a ton of your chakra as fuel to his Infinite Armor, and then I saw your Leaf buddies over there sneak up on and sucker punch Suikō."

"Good Lord…" the rogue muttered. He looked over his shoulder and addressed Guy, "How about this? In honor of your father, allow me to save you some time and effort and put these fools out of their misery for you?"

"Well, there's no need to kill them, but other than that, I think that would be splendid," the exuberant jōnin responded. "Come on, my youthful students. I brought some cookies to eat…" As Team Guy walked over to a concrete picnic table nearby, and their voices faded, Raiga smirked in anticipation.

"_Do you want my assistance…?"_

"No, I've got this," the swordsman said confidently, drawing his two short blades, which crackled with electricity as he drew them up in a cross pattern in front of his face. "These fools have no idea what they're in for…"

"Oh really?" Hōki actually sounded cocky, as if he had a plan up his sleeve. "I would love to see what you can do, but I'm not in the mood to walk all the way over there. I would love it if you came to me so I could kick your ass over here."

"And I'm in no mood to be screwed with, nor am I the idiot you take me for, so I'll just wait here for you to get your scrawny ass out in the open so I can teach you a new definition of pain." To emphasize the point, he set his swords on the ground before lowering himself into a cross-legged position. Further hammering the point home, he closed his eyes and began to whistle a light tune.

There was no response from Hōki or either of his conscious teammates, whom had not made their locations known yet, after a few moments, and everyone there realized that they were likely plotting something. "_I'm not sure that's necessary…_" his hidden friend muttered, obviously annoyed with the older man's behavior. "_He's going to do something you won't see coming_…"

Raiga paused his song to snort loudly. "That moron? I doubt it…"

Off to his left, the sound of crunching leaves rang out, and the keen ears of the swordsman picked it up. Whipping one of his arms out, he sent a blast of electricity into the edge of the grove, instantly frying about a dozen trees but otherwise seemingly not doing a thing.

A few seconds later, this time on his right, something snapped a piece of scrap wood, and the other hand and sword sent a harpoon of lightning through a pole, behind which the noise originated. Still, no one could be seen.

Team Guy was still sitting at their picnic table, munching on the surprisingly tasty iced oatmeal cookies that the exuberant jōnin had cooked earlier. Despite the late hour, all four were still alert, though Tenten was lightly leaning on Neji's shoulder as she finished her second cookie. "Why isn't this guy finishing them off?" she asked, obviously getting bored with Raiga's excuse for target practice.

"Beats me," the Hyūga prodigy replied before licking his fingers dry, enjoying a rare moment away from clan-mandated etiquette. "From what I've heard about these Mist swordsmen, they're somewhat eccentric, so maybe that's the reason for it. To be honest, he reminds me of a more sadistic version of Naruto or Lee."

Said genin, who was also done with his own stack of cookies, shrugged. "I cannot deny you that, my friend, but he does not seem to be having much success, is he not?" the inquisitive young man queried. "It seems like a waste of chakra to mindlessly fire off at any sound he hears."

"Well, I did say Naruto, didn't I? Speaking of which, it might be worth asking if he has either of the Mist's bijū…you know, in his collection…"

"…point taken."

"Would you all mind stopping your yakking?" Raiga hissed, pausing his lightning assault and turning his head so they could see his peevish expression. "Contrary to popular opinion, I don't have some sort of vendetta against my living space, so if you would please shut up so I don't get attacked on accident…?"

"Too late for that, idiot!" Hōki's voice reemerged from the inky darkness. "We've been playing you like a fiddle ever since you got here." As the electric-powered swordsman turned his gaze to where the man's tones came from, the oldest of the Takumi ninja slowly strolled out into the light of one of the few functional streetlights of the abandoned town. Clasped in his hand was his jeweled longsword, but it merely lay at his side. His face was the picture of confidence as he stopped a couple of yards away. "You seem to take us as stupid hicks from the country. I'm not going to confirm or deny how angry that makes us, but it is somewhat of an assumption, don't you think? Just what if we've been guiding you right into a trap this entire time?"

Raiga was more intrigued than threatened by this, though he blinked owlishly at Hōki's word selection. "'We?' I see you finally decided to come out and face me like a man, but I do not understand your use of 'we.' 'We' implies more than one person. You are by yourself, so where are your flunkies hiding?"

"You'll find out soon enough," the Takumi ninja snapped, obviously growing irritated with Raiga's rather flippant nature about the whole fight. "Kujaku, Ryūgan, please feel free to make yourselves known whenever you want."

"It'll be our pleasure!" Two blurs shot out of the gloom, one from the forest and another from the general area of the Valleys passageway. Together, the rogue squad formed a perfect triangle around the lightning-wielding ninja swordsman. The lone female of the group also held twin swords, though these were exquisitely built and lacked the tines that Raiga's Kiba had. The shorter, younger ninja held his scaled, trident-like blade loosely at his waist, and the expression on his face was a mix of sadistic and tentative, if the occasional glances at his leader were any indication. Kujaku was the exact opposite as the picture of calm, her features almost radiating a sense of boredom, but the way she twitched her swords around every couple of seconds betrayed her desire to get things going.

"I'm assuming that there a reason for your coordination, but I honestly could care less," the Mist rogue hissed, his own features ripe with excitement. "Let's get things going, shall we? I'm tired of dancing around and playing your little game." He slowly drew his swords up and held them out away from his body at each side. They began to crackle with excited electrons as the name of the technique leaked from his lips, "Raienkō – Raijinhan (Lightning Halo – Thunder God's Domain)!" Almost immediately, the lightning bolts shot out in a circular formation and surrounded him in three halos of crackling energy, giving him an appearance befitting of an atom.

Hōki's lips twitched up in a menacing grin. "Thank you so much, we were wondering when you'd get involved in this little tango of ours. Team, technique start!" At his command, all conscious members of the Takumi ninja began to flash through hand signs. Unbeknownst to either Raiga or Team Guy, the tiger's mouth on Suikō's armor also began to grow and move slightly.

"If this is supposed to scare me, it isn't working!" Kiba's wielder growled. "Here I come!" His legs tensed as he turned towards the foreign team leader, as if he was preparing a lunging assault.

"Not quite!" Hōki shouted by himself before his voice was joined by his associates, "Ningu Kekkai – Namazu no Jin (Ninja Tools Barrier – Catfish Formation)!"

"Catfish? What the hell…" Raiga's indignant exclamation was cut short by a sharp cry of pain as the Infinite Armor detached from Suikō's limp body and chomped down on his legs. As that distracted him, he was helpless to defend against the pillars that erupted from the ground in a circle around him. Each one began to vibrate slightly but didn't do much else. Kujaku's blade sent a wave of wind down to the ring, while Ryūgan's trident provided a stream of water and Hōki's longsword a thick ribbon of fire. The three elements blended as they reached the ring, creating a veritable cacophony around the trapped ninja swordsman.

Team Guy was now on full alert, and as one they leapt up from their picnic table and began to dash towards the fight. Hōki and his gang were obviously expecting this, as his teammates disengaged while he said, "Keep them at bay. I'll only need a few minutes." The two obediently backed off and stood a few feet away next to each other, right in the way of the oncoming Leaf attackers.

"You wrap up the genin, and I'll blast them away so we can deal with the jōnin," Kujaku snapped, now in full battle form while baring her blades before her. The younger ne'er-do-well scowled at being told what to do but nodded reluctantly, dashing forward to meet the attackers head on.

"Neji, Tenten, back off!" Guy ordered, taking charge immediately as he moved to flank Lee, "Lee and I will strike first, while you follow up. Formation A-2!" The two lovers nodded and slowed their pace while the green clad duo sped up, launching off the ground and taking two split approaches to the waiting youngster.

Ryūgan scowled further at having the plan blasted to shreds but didn't falter, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. As the two taijutsu wizards grew within range of his blade, he reared back and threw his arm forward, almost like he was throwing a ball. No projectiles flew out, but the serpentine blades of the sword whipped out, two aiming for Guy and the other for Lee.

Neji saw this coming and tried to shout a warning, but he was far too slow to beat the winding wire blades' approach. They quickly wrapped around the two green beasts, eliciting cries of protest from both, but neither seemed to be in pain. Rather, they were more annoyed by the unexpected weapon getting the drop on them, and once they figured out what the issue was, they immediately began to struggle, to minor success.

Their two teammates had started to approach upon seeing this, but Kujaku was having none of that. She twirled her twin blades around her hands momentarily before bringing them up in a cross-shaped formation. "You'll have to do better than that!" she hissed, "You're too predictable!" A veritable maelstrom of wind erupted from the intersection of her weapons, large enough to encompass the area shared by both groups of targets. Neji and Tenten were quick enough to jump out of the way, albeit barely, but they were unable to do a thing for their teammates as a result. Lee and Guy took a massive blow from the concussive windblast, which did do them the favor of releasing them from the snake blades holding them, but also sent them flying back into the gloom.

"Tenten, you get the one with the trident sword; I'll get the girl," the Hyūga boy immediately barked, now fully in combat mode, and his girlfriend nodded firmly before reaching for one of her scrolls.

Neji was around twenty meters away from his target, and he immediately began to start dodging windblasts, this time more focused and much smaller. They were neither lethal nor powerful, but they were frequent and rather annoying, so much that he was having trouble advancing much further than his current position. His family training was coming in handy, however; training enough with his uncle and father in the art of Jūken had afforded him a certain level of flexibility in his movements, and his cousin had only served to reinforce that, as her own variation of the Hyūga art had her moving like a weeping willow in a hurricane. As a result, he didn't take a single hit directly, but he also wasn't making any progress, so he decided to fight fire with fire.

After ten minutes and a particularly nasty projectile of slicing air nearly gave him a premature haircut, he had enough of their little jig. He cupped both of his hands by his side and began to shove them forward using his Hakke Kūshō (Eight Trigrams Air Palm) technique to counteract Kujaku's own wind-powered abilities. To his pleasant surprise and her ire, his chakra projectiles were instantly making things much easier, having more than enough power to cancel out the enemy blasts as well as puncture through to put the rogue Takumi kunoichi on her heels as well. The twenty meters of separation quickly began to shrink, and Neji's face took on a rare predatory smirk as he realized that he was taking control of their little duel.

Nineteen…sixteen…eleven…seven…

Closer and closer he inched, and Kujaku's face was beginning to show both a significant amount of distress as well as strain from constantly having to keep up with her attacks. It was dreadfully obvious that Neji's technique was far superior to hers in efficiency, and she was coming to that realization very quickly.

Five…four…three…two…one…

Neji was now right in front of her face, and neither could do a thing without sustaining a serious amount of backlash damage, so the young man made his move. As Kujaku twisted her body to try to get a better, safer angle from which to slash at her opponent, the flexible Hyūga youth dropped down into a crouch and lapsed into his Gōken roots to sweep the Takumi ninja's feet out from under her. Not being able to react quickly enough, she was still able to partially dodge it and avoided a complete collapse, but that was all Neji needed.

"Hakke…Isshō!" His hand shot out and tagged a point on the woman's right wrist.

"Nishō!" This time, he hit her left wrist in the same place, and both swords clattered to the ground as she lost all controllable motion in her hands.

"Yonshō!" He continued to assail her arms, tagging each one once more in the forearm.

"Hasshō!" Continuing up her arm, she lost feeling in her biceps and triceps from four more blows.

"Jūrokushō!" Now moving on to her legs, he shut down overt movements with eight more jabs to her thighs and knees, and she began to wobble on her feet.

"Sanjūnishō!" Sixteen more drove her to the ground, but he wasn't done yet.

"Rokujūyonshō!" The final thirty-two strikes absolutely destroyed her chakra system, and she collapsed in a pile, unconscious.

The Hyūga youth stood up to full stature and took a deep breath to compose once more. "Well…that's that…" he muttered victoriously, dusting off his hands and then his robes. "Now…on to helping out Guy-sensei and Lee…and Kurosuki Raiga too," he added as an afterthought. He turned back towards the cage, but the glint of metal from his opponent's blades caught his eye. "Well…if nothing else, I have a good start to her birthday present…" Picking up the unique weapons, he strode towards the other fights, absently twirling one around in his hands.

…xXx…

Meanwhile, Tenten stood a few feet away from the youngest Takumi ninja, eyeing him warily while twirling two steel batons in her hands as miniature staffs. Her reasoning behind this was to counteract the odd, telescoping trident-sword mix of a weapon that her opponent currently wielded. She didn't seem to be all that worried, but fear of the unknown and lack of battle experience kept her in a cautious state.

Her opponent picked up on this, as he cockily stated, "Scared, are you? My Garian Sword got you quivering in your sandals after seeing the true power of the Takumi Village?"

The bun-haired genin shrugged in dismissal, squashing her fears. "Not especially. I've seen better in my father's reject pile after a long day in the furnace shed," she replied in just as snarky of a tone, noting smugly the rising ire in Ryūgan's expression. "But I also wouldn't mind taking it off your hands if you no longer have a use for it."

"You…you bitch!" the young man was livid. "You dare mock our proud craftsmen with your crass words?! I shall make you pay for that with your life!" Wasting no time, he immediately began to run at Tenten, appearing to ignore the valuable properties of his unique weapon to focus on simply slicing his opponent to shreds.

Neji's girlfriend was very pleased with this, as it played right into her hands, though she didn't drop her guard due to the previously proven devious nature of these bandits. Instead, she simply threw her arms up and blocked the downward swing of the trident by sticking a metal rod in both of the gaps. The force of the impact she was expecting; the look of utter surprise on the young man's face she was not. Still, she kept her composure and wrenched her arms to the side, and Ryūgan could do nothing but topple to the side.

As she twirled the batons around in her hands and stood in a barely concealed defensive stance, the Takumi youth stared up at her with a mixture of surprise, fear, and pure anger. "Wh-what did you just do?" he spat furiously, "There's no way that those pathetic metal rods could stop my Garian Sword! You hear me!? There's NO WAY!" Such was his anger that tiny globs of spit were flying from his mouth, and he stumbled around like a fool trying (and failing) to rise to his feet.

Tenten could do nothing but stare at this pathetic scene, wondering where the calm and collected nature had flown off to. "What's your problem?" she queried tentatively, "You can't expect me to just let you attack me without some sort of defense, can you?"

"Oh, stuff it you bitch!" Okay, that pushed her buttons a little. "There's no way your pathetic weapons should be able to stand up to the craftsmanship of the Takumi Village! Your stupid, worthless metal rods are of such inferior quality that I could find better in a trash heap. I'll show you how much of a failure your blacksmith truly is!"

Ryūgan was so ensconced in his rant that he didn't see how angry his opponent was getting, and that would soon come around to bite him in the ass. As the bright-eyed young man paused to take a breath, Tenten interrupted him before he could get started once more. "Alright, that's it," she snapped. "You can insult my village, and you can insult me, but don't ever insult my father and the weapons that he and his men forged with their own two hands." Her low tone and rather scary expression would have scared many, but her opponent was rather close to losing what little composure he had left, and as such didn't seem to notice.

"Oh boo hoo," he sneered, "I bet your father is some sort of lame-ass washed-up has-been ninja that couldn't cut it in the field." He began to cackle, his sanity seemingly lost to the fight.

"Kanuchi Bukimaru." Ryūgan's laughter ceased immediately, and he slowly turned to look at Tenten, who was now looking at him coolly.

"What?" he asked weakly. "You're kidding me…"

"What reason would I have to lie about that?"

The blue haired boy shook his head and screamed, trying to block out her words. "There's no way! That…TRAITOR…to our village still being alive, and in the Leaf Village, and…and your FATHER of all people…what kind of game are you playing, you little BITCH?!" He reared back his arm and appeared to be preparing another assault with his sword.

"Hey." Ryūgan flinched at the introduction of a new voice, and he slowly rotated his view to where the new arrival had spoken. He didn't more than a fleeting glance before a fist slammed into his cheek, and the Takumi ninja tumbled across the ground before resting a few feet away from Tenten, clearly unconscious. "No one talks to her like that," Neji muttered, casting a dark glare on the cocky rogue as he walked over to his girlfriend. "Are you okay?

"A little pissed off, but otherwise alright," she replied, continuing to glare at the foul teen before the Hyūga prodigy grabbed her by the shoulder and gently turned her away so she looked at him instead. "Now I know why my father refuses to talk about his past…" she murmured as her face slowly morphed from anger to melancholic.

"Don't mind them," Neji replied quickly, knowing how dysfunctional her family was and not wanting her to get in a funk in the middle of the mission. "We need to help Guy-sensei and Lee and Kurosuki Raiga. The final Takumi ninja is by far the most skilled, and even between the three of them, he might still have a slight edge."

Tenten nodded absently as they both turned to look at the final battle area…before her mouth twitched up in a smirk. "I'm not too sure we're needed…" Neji followed her gaze and couldn't help but snort at the sight. Lee and Guy were just fine, as was their expectation (and hope), but they were shocked to see Raiga standing with them, and Suikō and Hōki's unconscious bodies lying at their feet. The bulky swordsman was still favoring his legs a little but seemed to be alright for the most part. The ninja in green spandex were holding the two weapons of the fallen rogues at their feet, and Neji discreetly grabbed Ryūgan's sword as they walked over.

The Mist 'traitor' saw the final two members of Team Guy as they walked over. "Sorry to steal all of your fun, but I was getting tired of dealing with these morons," he called out, not sounding apologetic in the least.

The two lovers shrugged, not all that concerned with not having to do much more work. Lee, looking for something to do, quickly threw the weapon in his hands (Hōki's black sword) at Tenten. "I will go retrieve the other two so we can turn them over to the proper authorities," he threw over his shoulder, and Guy nodded affirmatively.

"We're closest to the Hidden Cloud Village, so it would probably be best to contact the Raikage's office for ANBU prisoner transport, unless Taniko has a different idea," he added, extracting his cell phone from his hip pouch to call her up.

"It would probably be best for you to make yourself scarce before they show up," Neji added to that as Guy began to converse with his old friend, addressing the burly rogue. "Despite you being a missing criminal of the Hidden Mist Village, I would not put it past the Raikage's men to try to gain a political edge by taking you into their custody."

"_I agree with the Hyūga,_" the voice in the backpack added, startling the Leaf ninja again, "_I think it would be best to return to our hideout so we can analyze the data on that memory stick before proceeding to Momochi Zabuza's location._"

"Um…" Tenten hesitated slightly because of the awkwardness of her request, but she began to ask anyways. "I know this is somewhat of a strange question, Mr. Kurosuki, but what exactly is that on your back anyways? Is it a person? I keep hearing a voice but I can't see anyone…"

Raiga looked a little confused before realizing what she was talking about. "Oh this?" he asked, gesturing to the backpack-like container strapped around his shoulders. "Yeah, there's a little guy in there. He's just a little shy and immobile, so I carry him around instead of forcing him to find alternate means of transportation."

"He's rather astute," Neji added, remembering the young man's earlier observations in the midst of battle. "Does he have some sort of ability?"

"Good eye there, Hyūga." Of course, the pun wasn't missed on anyone, and the stoic teen had to refrain from rolling his eyes in annoyance. "Remember the raids on the various kekkei genkai-wielding clans of the Hidden Mist Village that occurred a while back?" Guy nodded immediately, while the other three showed a minimal sign of recognition from their memories of history at the academy. "Ranmaru's family managed to escape relatively unscathed from those incidents, though they were tracked down a few years later right after he was born and murdered. Ranmaru sustained injuries to his spine that have rendered him a paraplegic during the attack, which is why I carry him on my back. His clan is actually peripherally related to both the Hyūga and Uchiha clan, and he has a sixth sense of sorts through that allows him a superior sense of sight and perception."

The long-haired melee specialist was somewhat surprised by this but still nodded slowly. Guy was just finishing up his call, and with a final note of goodbye hung up his cell call. "Taniko is contacting Hidden Cloud as we speak," he said as he walked over to his team. "She said that for the time being, her ninja will keep them in their holding cells until they can be handed over."

"What about the weapons?" Tenten asked uncertainly, her eyes shifting back and forth between the one of a kind pieces. "Do we need to hand them over to the Cloud ninja as well?"

Guy had a devious look on his face, looking quite proud of himself. "I didn't bother to mention that they had anything all that special, so they have no reason to suspect any sort of extra cargo. I assume we can find a way to make them disappear, or something of the sort…?"

Turning his back, he could barely hide a smirk as the three genin set about with stashing the swords and armor in a scroll. "Kurosuki Raiga, I wish you good luck with your journey to the Land of Waves. Feel free to drop my name or that of Hatake Kakashi if he has any questions about your appearance there." The exuberant jōnin held out his hand, and the rogue took in and shook.

"I thank you for your care in understanding my situation," Raiga replied. "I would also appreciate it if you would relay to Bonchi Taniko my apologies for the actions of my men. I did my best to corral their…tendencies…but there is only so much that I could do." He cast a shaded sad gaze around the dim remnants of the village, obviously paying a brief last respects to the bandits with whom he had bonded over the last few months. "I hope in the future that we will cross paths once more…and maybe I can test your might against that of your father."

"I would like that," Guy replied, smiling and nodding his head.

"_I would as well…_" Both jōnin looked startled and then burst out laughing, drawing some strange glances from the genin. After a few moments of peaceful cackling, the men calmed down, and this time Raiga saluted Guy and his squad before silently disappearing into the night.

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned!


	9. (Chūnin Exams 1) Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 8 – Move Out! The Chūnin Exams Loom!**

Ever since Namikaze Minato became the Fourth Hokage, and especially after the Kyūbi affair was taken care of, his goal was to introduce some life into the village through positive change and good will throughout the countries of the world. It was very difficult, especially considering the ill will still present between the Hidden Leaf Village and other major ninja villages, especially with Hidden Rock and Hidden Sand. He still put a lot of effort into his endeavors, and he was slowly getting the other countries to open up and loosen the grudges they held over the wars, especially those involving his participation in those battles.

One of those changes was the introduction of a type of welcoming ceremony to open the Chūnin Exams. Because it was the lone time that ninja from all of the villages gathered in a mostly neutral capacity, Minato thought it might be a worthwhile idea to foster some good will whenever the examinations were held in the Hidden Leaf Village. Of the five main villages, Hidden Sand's Kazekage, Rasa, was the only one amenable to a cooperative relationship. The Tsuchikage and Raikage wanted nothing to do with Minato and the village for personal reasons, and the Hidden Mist Village was in such a state of turmoil that the Hokage frankly wished he didn't ever receive a confirmation of travel from their delegates.

This year, in addition to the sizeable home group participating in the exams, there was a surprisingly large contingent from the Hidden Rain Village; a good sign when one considers the destruction and fighting that area had to endure during the previous wars. Rasa's children were participating as one of the ten teams from his village, and there were one or two teams each from Waterfall and Grass. There was even a single team from one of the newly founded villages, Hidden Sound.

Because of decorum (and possibly a show of power and prestige, though the blond Hokage never said if that was true), the leaders of the four noble clans of the village were required to be present, and as the family of the current leader, Naruto was required to join his parents as well…

…which brings up another conundrum, one that Naruto and Sasuke were currently contemplating on the back porch of the Namikaze residence. "Don't get me wrong," the blond muttered, "I'm all for going on dates, but why do we need to find one now? Dad's never made me bring someone to the previous opening ceremonies…"

"You're telling me," Sasuke groaned, "Every girl in this village wants in my pants. I have no idea how I'm going to find someone who's even remotely normal."

"Who's going to be there anyways that we know?" Naruto asked, scrunching his face in concentration as he tried to think, "There isn't anyone our age from either the Akimichi or Aburame clans. Right?"

"If there is, I'd love to know who it is so I can ask them right now," Sasuke replied, "I know people are creeped out by the Aburame, but a girl from either one of those clans is more likely to be normal. I think the closest I could get is one of Chōji's cousins, but both of them are in their mid twenties."

"And I don't even think Shino has any young female relatives…" his friend groaned. "So that leaves the Hyūga…" as if a lightbulb had come on in his head, Naruto's face lit up. "I can ask Hinata! I bet she would go with me!"

"Yeah you'd love that, huh," Sasuke muttered as he smirked before dodging the head cuff sent his way, "But in all seriousness…let me go with Hinata. She's literally the only sane girl our age in this village. For all that is good in this world, let me have one night of peace."

"Get your own date!" was the answer shot back at him, and the Uchiha's eyes narrowed.

"Why don't we settle this the old fashioned way?" he proposed slyly.

Despite the petulant look on his face, the blond agreed, and both teens abruptly drew back their fists…

"Rock! Paper! Scissors…shoot!" they shouted in unison. Sasuke's hand remained balled up in a fist, while Naruto's palm was lying flat.

Smirking in victory, the blond got up and walked back into the house, throwing back over his shoulder, "I'll see you later, Sasuke. I'll be anxiously waiting to hear whom you decided to ask to go with you later!" Moments later, he heard a large groan of frustration from outside, and all he could do was break down laughing as he continued on his way to the front door.

…xXx…

Later in the week, Naruto and Sasuke were in the backyard of the Namikaze estate. Both were sweating quite profusely, and Naruto had already shed his jacket. The boys were lightly sparring, using their downtime after the long cross-country trip to get some practice in. Currently, they were sitting on the back porch, sipping on some water.

"Naruto! Sasuke!" a voice shouted from inside the house. The two boys turned around to see Kushina walking outside. "Are you two about done? Minato will be home soon, and you need to be ready to go by the time he gets here."

"Come on, Mom!" Naruto complained, "Dad won't be home for another hour! We'll be done in about thirty minutes. That's plenty of time to shower and put on some fancy clothes." The look on Sasuke's face indicated that he also wanted to continue sparring for a little longer. The blond's face took on a sour look as he added under his breath, "Besides, we don't take three hours like you do…"

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that and give you a chance to practice some more," Kushina said lightly, though her mean streak was visible deep in her eyes, and the teens both clammed up fast, "I guess it wouldn't hurt…but you'll have to fight me!"

The young Uchiha grinned in anticipation as his eyes flashed crimson, revealing the Sharingan. He and Naruto leapt back away from the back porch and darted into the forest behind the house. The Uzumaki son threw over his shoulder a taunt of, "Bring it on, Mom!" as they disappeared into the woods.

"As you wish," she replied, smiling sweetly and not making a real effort to hurry after the two teens, and the reason why was made evident seconds later, as twenty clones of her own appeared next to her. Pointing her arm to the sky, she shouted, "Alright, girls! Let's do this!" All of them leapt off of the porch in one great bound and disappeared into the woods after her charges.

Moments later, the gaggle of women screeched to a halt as a giant fireball came screaming their way. They made no move to get out of the way, noticing that both Naruto and Sasuke were close behind. As the flames engulfed all twenty women, the fireball exploded in an unnaturally large blast, knocking both of them backwards to the ground. Knowing what was coming next, they both hopped to their feet and stood back-to-back, defending themselves as well as possible.

"Good job, boys, but that's not enough to save you!" a voice emanated from the woods around them. Before the two young men could react, someone moved at extreme speeds and took both of them out, knocking them back to the ground. As they stumbled to their feet and turned around as quickly as possible, Kushina appeared before them, looking quite different. Her eyes were a demonic red color, and the irises were mere slits, while her hands and feet were covered by pure red chakra, giving them the appearance of claws. "Remember, boys. I have many more years of experience in battle, and Naruto, I have had access to Kurama's chakra since I was born," she growled lowly, the smirk on her face being warped into a demonic visage by the chakra surrounding her.

"**Yeah, and she was even louder than you at times, brat…**" the fox lord muttered from within his cage.

"Fūton Kage Bunshin (Wind Release Shadow Clone)…" Sasuke muttered, glancing backward at the smoke cloud.

"Just wait until I learn that technique, Mom," the blond growled, "I hate it when you use it."

His mother chuckled lightly. "That'll come with time. For now, you'll just have to settle for the normal version," she responded lightly, "Speaking of which… surprise attacks won't work on me, son!" She turned around and kicked Naruto in the stomach, sending him flying backwards. He landed softly on the trunk of a nearby tree and stuck there, snarling. He had assumed a one tailed form and had tried to sneak up on his mother from behind while a clone had masqueraded as the original. "Did you forget that foxes have strong senses?" she reprimanded him.

Sasuke pulled out two of his kunai and held them out in front of him in a battle ready position. "Naruto!" he exclaimed, and the blond nodded. Both boys charged towards their mother, but she didn't flinch. As they were right about to strike, she grabbed each of them and flung them in opposite directions. Sasuke slammed into the tree Naruto had just left, and Naruto barely managed to recover and plant himself to the side of a large rock on the other side of the clearing. Neither boy could prevent the shining chains that shot around then and bound them to the surfaces they were in contact with, though, and Kushina grinned in triumph.

"Looks like I win again, boys. Now get inside and get cleaned up. We have a dinner to get to soon," she said, dropping her chakra covering and the chains restraining Naruto and Sasuke. Both boys fell to the ground and got up pouting. They didn't look much happier as they stalked past their mother and into the house. Kushina just chuckled and followed them in.

…xXx…

The welcoming ceremony was being held later that night, the reason behind Naruto and Sasuke being hurried into getting cleaned up by Kushina, in a high-class restaurant and banquet hall underneath the Hokage Memorial. The current leader of the Hidden Leaf village was arriving just then, officially a few minutes early so he could be there to greet all of his guests. The Namikaze party, as they arrived at the entrance to the event, were all dressed in formal dress wear of varying designs and colors. Minato wore his signature title cape and the Hokage hat over a dark blue suit, Kushina was dressed in a seafoam green, floor length dress, and Naruto wore a black suit. Both father and son still wore their forehead protectors as usual in a show of their alliances, and Kushina's was resting around her neck. The Uzumaki clan spiral was present in all three outfits by way of an armband secured around the biceps. Sasuke was also dressed in a black suit, and his clan's symbol was stitched on the front pocket of his jacket.

On his arm was a somewhat surprised and befuddled Haruno Sakura, sporting a simple red dress. Sasuke had exhausted all of his options, even resorting to asking Minato to access the files on all the women around his age that lived in the village. In the end, finding no one that was 100% sane, he opted to ask the pinkette, being the only girl he had ever had some amount of social interaction with, and her reaction was surprisingly controlled and decidedly not unbearable.

(Little did he know that as soon as he asked her and left in an embarrassed haze, she called Ino on the spot and gloated for a good 30 minutes, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him so…)

Opposite him, Naruto's date was coming with the delegate from the Hyūga clan, so he would be meeting her at the event. As the party of four plus one entered the hall, they were not surprised to discover that they were some of the first ones there, as Minato had hoped. He and Kushina left the boys to talk with Nara Shikaku, who was required to be there as jōnin commander and had been dragged there by his wife to make sure he was on time, and the two boys left to talk with Shikamaru, who was sitting at a table looking decidedly bored out of his mind. Both of them noticed there was no date in sight and silently growled in anger.

The sharply dressed blond stomped over and stuck his nose in the lazy young man's face, asking petulantly. "Oi, Shikamaru, don't you have a date?"

The Nara heir cracked open an eye and jumped back a little at the close proximity Naruto's face was to his before shoving his head away. "Not by choice," he grumbled, "Mom set me up with some girl a year or two ahead of our class. She's kind of a flake but not too annoying." 

"So…where is she?" Sasuke asked, still not completely assured.

His answer was in the form of a thumb jerk in the direction of the women's restroom, from where a vaguely familiar girl was approaching them. With long, platinum blonde hair and rather thick spectacles, she wore a short, pale blue dress and was constantly fiddling with her hair trying to get it to stay in shape.

Some shifting at his side caused Sasuke to realize that Sakura was still lightly holding onto his arm, and he noticed a look of remembrance on her face. "Do you know her?" he asked curiously.

"Yeah…" she replied, "She's one of Ino's cousins. I think she graduated two years ahead of us. Her name is Shiho." Sasuke shuddered in horror, thinking that she might be as bad as the true Yamanaka heir. "She works with the cryptanalysis team. She's smart and really personable, but she's shy. Not at all like Ino." The young Uchiha breathed a sigh of relief, something missed by Sakura as she continued her analysis, "The only thing similar between the two of them is how much energy they have, or else you'd have no idea they were related."

The newcomer, as she approached, noted the arrival of Team 7 and hurried over. "Wow…" she breathed in amazement, taking in all three of them, "The son of the Fourth Hokage, it's an honor to meet you!" She took Naruto's hand and shook it vigorously, even as the young man observed in mild amusement.

"Really, I'm not that special," he said, waving off her praise. It took a lot for him to get embarrassed, but pulling the 'son of the Hokage' card was the one thing that really got him flustered. Not that he had a problem with it or his relationship to his father, but he honestly just preferred to be seen as a person on his own.

Shiho then turned to the other male member of Team 7, took his hand, and shook it just as energetically. "And Uchiha Sasuke, one of the last of the Uchiha clan, it's a pleasure, truly!" He frowned a little at her categorization of him but couldn't get mad at her too much because of her bubbling spirit. Finally, she turned to Sakura and gave her a bright smile. "Sakura, I didn't expect to see you here!"

The pinkette gave her a warm smile in return. "I honestly can say I didn't expect to be here either," she said dryly. Shiho returned to Shikamaru's side, blushing heavily and continuing to fix her hair near constantly.

The guests began to trickle in from there. The Akimichi and Aburame clan delegations both arrived soon after, and while the clan heads went to greet the Hokage, Shino and Chōji joined the growing group of genin. The former had managed to avoid having to bring a date, and the latter had Ino draped on his arm. As they approached, her head was on a swivel, listening to the growing buzz of conversation around her. When they joined, the girls took one side of the table, and the guys took the other, and they devolved into various trains of thought. Of course, as one of the smartest people in the village, Shikamaru had positioned himself right near the buffet table, so when their parents weren't looking, all five teenage boys were sneaking snacks.

The Hyūga clan head family showed up a few minutes later, and Naruto left the group to nervously meet his date. Along with the clan head and his family, the young Uzumaki was pleased to see that Neji's family was also present.

His parents joined the son as the two families meet to say hello. "Hiashi, Hizashi, thank you so much for coming," Minato greeted the twin brothers, "I wish we had more time to meet up, but hopefully we have some time to talk here."

"We're looking forward to it, Lord Hokage," the main family head replied, shaking the leader's hand, and the blond jōnin could only shake his head in amused disbelief at how resistant Hiashi still was to violating tradition; despite many efforts, the Hyūga head refused to refer to Minato by his name in formal situations.

Kushina and the two Hyūga mothers had already drifted away in pleasant conversation, leaving only the men and teens of the clan. "Naruto, it's nice to see you," Neji said cordially, dressed in a traditional robe of his clan, "I am looking forward to seeing how you perform in the Chūnin exams." On his arm was his teammate Tenten, looking radiant in a crimson kimono.

"As am I with you," the young blond replied, and the two exchanged a handshake as Neji and his date went to join the genin herd.

As he approached the table, he noticed Sasuke sitting there. The two clans were no longer in a state of continual strife and competition as they once were, but there was still some aspect of competitiveness present in both boys, who both wanted to best the other. As such, as he grew close, Sasuke looked him in the eyes and said simply in an even tone, "Hyūga."

Neji responded with a neutral glance and an utterance of, "Uchiha." Sasuke gave a small snort and continued listening to the conversation. The Hyūga teen rolled his eyes and sat down as well.

Back at the entrance, almost immediately the two Hyūga men descended on Naruto, who struggled to contain his quivering under the harsh glares he was receiving.

"So…Naruto…" Hiashi started slowly, dropping all pretenses of formality as more serious matters came to the forefront, "Can I be assured that you'll behave yourself tonight with my daughter? I shouldn't have to warn you about the consequences if you conduct yourself in an unprofessional manner…"

His brother appeared to remember something and nudged him lightly. "Yes, brother, remember, we have a clan tournament coming up, and we need a durable warm-up dummy." 

"Ah, that's right, brother," Hiashi mused, eyes glinting evilly, "It would be absolutely…_unfortunate_…if we had to _recruit_ you to help us out with our clan's main event of the year. All of the members of the clan need to get in a good workout before their duels, and we'd need _something_," making sure to draw out that final word for emphasis, "that could hold up well for repeated chakra-charged blows. I wouldn't want to have to put you through such an ordeal, so I would hope that you would be on your utmost best behavior tonight on your date with my daughter…"

"Sir, we're not going on a date!" Naruto spluttered, "I asked her because I thought we would have a nice time tonight! We're just friends, that's all! Of course I'll treat her with respect!"

Unnoticed to the three males was the drooping of the young lady standing slightly behind them, but Hiashi and Hizashi both nodded with respect and assurance of the young heir's safety, even though they never really had any doubt. They just felt like having some fun away from the prying eyes of the clan elders. Naruto turned to his date for the night and did a double take. Hinata, even though she still looked somewhat down after the blond's statements, was stunning and dressed to kill. Her floor length lavender dress was accented by a dark blue cover and white heels, her hair was up in a fancy up do, and her face had just a touch of makeup.

"Woah, Hinata…" Naruto said in amazement, struggling to find an appropriate way to describe her, "You look…stunning…"

"Thank you," she replied softly, her face flushing from the praise, "You clean up well too."

The blond chuckled nervously and offered his arm to the young woman. She walked over and lightly looped her arm through his, and they made their way over to where the other genin were sitting. As they walked across the room, she mustered up her courage and asked softly, "Um…Naruto…what did you mean with what you told my father?" Despite the somewhat serious question she asked, she couldn't help but smile as she saw his face freeze in terror.

"What'd I say?" he asked, panicked, "Aw, crap, I knew I said something wrong. I don't want to be a practice dummy, they'll murder me!"

Hinata quickly put a finger to his mouth to silence the genin's blabbering and smiled gently. "No, you didn't say anything wrong. I was just curious about what you said about this not being a date…"

Relief flashed across Naruto's face briefly before his face fell as he realized that, once again, he had spoken without thinking. "No, no, no! Oh, crap, I didn't mean it like that!" he said quickly, "Of course I want to be here with you. I just meant it wasn't like a romantic thing, just the two of us doing stuff together, that's all!" Although she was glad he wasn't rejecting her outright, the look on her face was still not that enthused, and Naruto noticed that. "I was just talking about tonight. All I want tonight is to have fun, and besides, I haven't even asked your father for permission yet." That certainly got Hinata's attention, and the wink sent her way lit her face up with a radiant smile.

They continued on their way and joined the table of Hidden Leaf genin. They sat down in between Sasuke and Shino, with each pair of teammates sitting next to each other. Across from them were, from left to right, Chōji and Ino, Shikamaru and Shiho, and finally Tenten and Neji.

Naruto looked around at his peers and noted, "So, Team 7 is here in full, and Team 10 is represented as well."

"It's unfortunate that Kiba couldn't be here," Shino added, "Why? He's our teammate, and he's a fun person to be around." His female teammate nodded in agreement from next to her escort.

"Yeah, he's fun and all," the Nara heir muttered, "but he'd probably accidentally turn this into an international incident by spiking the wrong punchbowl."

"Come on Shikamaru," Chōji said gently, "Don't be that way. Kiba's not dumb enough to do that to the Kazekage." Upon receiving a decidedly dubious look, he chuckled and added, "I'm not saying he wouldn't do it to the Hokage. I can easily see him doing that. Or Naruto for that matter." That elicited a round of laughter from all the teenagers as Minato's son pouted in mock anger.

"Yeah, laugh it up," he muttered, "Just wait until I'm Hokage and you're all stuck doing D-rank missions for the rest of your life." Again, everyone burst out laughing, and the moment passed.

"Lee couldn't make it either," Tenten noted, "Though I'm not even sure he'd think about coming to something like this when he could be training instead."

Neji shuddered as a thought crossed his mind, "I'm almost afraid to think about what he and Gai-sensei are up to when we aren't around." His female teammate nodded with a grimace; those two were a true force to be reckoned with when together, both in terms of strength as well as strangeness.

A rise in chatter near the entrance caught the attention of the genin, and they all turned to look at the new arrivals. Judging by the formal, monotone robes, the Hidden Sand delegation had just arrived. Naruto nudged Hinata and whispered, "I think I need to be over there with Mom and Dad for this. You ready?" she nodded, and they walked over, arm in arm, and met the newcomers just as Minato and Kushina appeared from the growing crowd. The two Kage approached each other and removed their covers as they exchanged a handshake. "It's so good to see you again, Rasa," the Hokage welcomed his foreign equal.

"Likewise, my friend," he replied quietly, "It's been some time."

Minato glanced over the shoulder of the Kazekage for a moment before replying, "Yes, indeed it has. How are things going?" giving a pointed glance to the one of the three teens standing to the side.

Rasa sighed, his face weary and well beyond its years in age. "It's been…rough. Almost like the tables have been turned on me, but it's me talking to a brick wall instead of the other way around. It's been almost three years, and I feel like nothing has changed between the two of us," he said in a low tone. He sighed once more and ran his hand through his hair. "Don't get me wrong, I'm infinitely grateful that Lord Jiraiya traveled through the Wind Country when he did, and I can never thank you for the assistance you have given in better allocating missions between our two villages, but I'm just at a loss when it comes to dealing with this."

Nodding sympathetically, Minato placed his hand on Rasa's shoulder. "Time heals all wounds," he said softly, "and this too shall pass. It just may take a little longer than you hope it might."

The Kazekage sighed but nodded, hopeful that what his fellow leader said would come true. He turned slightly and waved the three teens behind him forward. "It's been awhile, so you probably don't remember each other, but these are my children. My eldest, Temari…" the quad-ponytailed blonde female, dressed in a purple robe, bowed slightly, "…next, Kankurō…" the taller of the two boys, similar to his father in stature and looks, nodded and shook the Hokage's hand, "and finally, my youngest, Gaara." The shortest of the three also nodded slightly and briefly took Minato's hand politely, though his face bled of boredom and contempt.

"It's great to see you three again," Minato replied cordially, "Allow me to introduce my beautiful wife, Kushina…" the redhead smiled brilliantly from her spot next to her husband, "…and my son Naruto and his date, Hyūga Hinata." The younger blond waved energetically, and Hinata shyly bowed her head in greeting. Turning back to Rasa, Minato added, "I'm sure you must be hungry after your journey, so allow me to introduce you to some of the best food in the Hidden Leaf Village. The Akimichi clan has cooked up a delicious feast…" The Kazekage nodded in eager agreement, and the two Kage, along with Kushina, wandered off towards the food, deep in conversation.

The three children of the Hidden Sand Village joined Naruto and Hinata, and Kankurō whistled in appreciation. "Damn, kid, I'd never have guessed you'd get this tall," he murmured, "Last time I saw you, you were a shrimp."

"I could say the same thing about you," the Hokage's son shot back good naturedly, "I didn't think I'd ever live to see the day that you didn't have makeup all over your face." Indeed, the kabuki-style paint that normally adorned Kankurō's face was absent, a result of the formal settings they were in.

"He wears more makeup than I do. He takes at least an hour every morning getting it _just_ right," Temari had to add in a jab at her younger brother, who shot her an evil glare, "But enough about Kankurō's beauty tips. Father has the right idea. Let's go get something to eat." She began walking slowly towards the food tables, smirking as her makeup-less brother quickly passed her.

That left Naruto and Hinata alone with the remaining sibling, Gaara. By no means great friends, the blond had still always felt closest to the redhead for a number of reasons, not just the similarity in age. "How have you been?" he asked tentatively, "It's been a long time."

Gaara just sighed and replied, "Life's gotten significantly better since Lord Jiraiya came and helped me out. I sleep way too much and I absolutely love it." He allowed a small smile to slip through, but it quickly disappeared. "My father, though…what he made me go through in my life is inexcusable, and it's hard to believe that he's just changed and honestly cares about me like he does for Temari and Kankurō."

Naruto was somewhat disappointed; from the snippets of conversation that he overheard from his father, he knew that the relationship between Gaara and Rasa was little more than a forced coexistence, and he was well aware of the reason that the Kazekage treated his son with disdain, but it was still hard for him to hear that they hadn't reconciled yet. He wasn't aware of all the details, but from what he knew, Rasa truly seemed to want to make peace with his son, but Gaara was having none of it. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter was that it wasn't his problem, nor was it his place to interfere, and he was going to ensure that the youngest heir of the Hidden Sand Village had a good experience in his village.

"Like my dad said, give it time," Naruto replied, trying to wave it off and move on to happier topics, "What we can't give any more time is the food over there. We'd better hurry before it's all gone!" Making sure Hinata was still with him, the two hurried back to the genin crowd. Gaara shook his head in amazement and went to join the rest of the delegate from the Hidden Sand Village, joining his siblings who shared some of the plates of food they had pilfered from the table.

…xXx…

A week later, Team 7 stood in the lobby of the ninja academy. Their teacher stood before them, almost appearing to block any further progress they were attempting to make. All three genin held signed forms in their hands and had determined looks on their faces. Kakashi had approached them during one of their regular team training sessions and offered them the applications for the Chūnin Exams, with the stipulation that they give it some serious thought before signing the form.

"Well, are you prepared for the next step, you three?" the silver-haired ninja asked softly, examining each one of his students carefully, "This won't be easy. Talented genin from around the world will be here, and a lot of them will have had a lot more experience than you. Many of the applicants will have already had a couple of attempts at the Chūnin Exam under their belts, so rank can go completely out the window in these competitions. Are you absolutely sure you want to go through with this?"

"Of course we're ready, Kakashi," Sasuke said confidently, "You know it, we know it, and even the Hokage knows it. I'm sure we can handle whatever is thrown our way." He held up the examination form and handed it to his teacher, who took with little to do.

"Yeah, Kakashi-sensei. We've trained a lot for this opportunity," Sakura added, equally as confident, "I think we can handle it." She also handed Kakashi her form, and he looked mildly surprised before giving her an encouraging smile.

"Let us at 'em, Kakashi-sensei! We can take anything anyone throws at us!" Naruto exclaimed, bouncing over and handing his form to his teacher, completing the set.

"I can see your determination, and I want you to know how proud of you three I am," he replied seriously, noting the looks of joy on the faces of Naruto and Sakura and the pride hidden behind Sasuke's smirking expression. The jōnin jerked his finger towards the staircase off to the right and continued, "When you're ready, head on up to the third floor, room 301. Good luck. I know you'll do great," and with that, he disappeared in a poof of smoke. All three genin rolled their eyes and made their way up the staircase to the third floor.

Upstairs, as they walked down the hallway, they ran into a crowd of people near the classroom they were supposed go to. Naruto looked rather confused as he asked, "What's all the commotion about?"

Sasuke's face was set in determination as he replied, "I don't know but I'm about to find out," before disappearing into the crowd. His teammates exchanged a look of slight confusion before quickly moving in after him.

It didn't take long for them to reach the center, and Naruto and Sakura had caught up with their teammate just in time to see someone be slapped back from the door. The young man on the ground wiping his lip was dressed from head to toe in a green jumpsuit, with orange arm and leg warmers. His black hair was in a dorky bowl cut, and huge black eyebrows framed his large eyes. As indicated by their presence nearby as they came to assist him, this was clearly the third member of Hyūga Neji and Tenten's team, Rock Lee. While the latter moved to help out her downed friend, Neji nodded his head towards Team 7 before turning his attention back to the two standing in front of room 301.

Both were wearing headbands indicating that they were ninja of the Hidden Leaf Village, and they appeared to be slightly older than most of the genin gathered around the room's entrance. One had his fist extended from where he had knocked back Rock Lee to the ground, and the other had two oversized kunai strapped across his back. Both wore identical cocky smirks as they observed the crowd around them.

"If you can't handle a wimpy punch like that, then there's no way you can handle the Chūnin Exams," the one who had punched the kid said, retracting his fist to his side.

"We aren't letting you anywhere near this classroom unless you can prove to us that you aren't completely worthless," the kunai-armed one added snidely.

A motion to the side caught Sasuke's eye, and he turned to see Neji subtly motioning towards his eyes and then at the sign outside the room. Catching his drift, both kekkei genkai wielders activated the special abilities of their eyes. Second later, the young Uchiha snorted and began walking away from the scene, surprising his teammates and causing the kunai-wielding ninja to spit out, "And where do you think you're going runt?"

"To room 301. We're on the second floor, or can't you count?" he shot back, not looking back as he continued walking.

While they were surprised that their deception had been so easily pierced, the two hooligans couldn't help but chuckle, and the crowd began to twitter excitedly as they noticed the sign over the room change from 301 to 201. The one armed with the kunai whispered, "Alright, smartass. Let's see if you see through this…" With that, he dashed towards his prey, preparing a sneak attack.

The gasp from the crowd clued in Team 7 that something was happening, and Sasuke turned around in time to see the older genin aiming a kick right at his head. The young Uchiha prepared to counterattack by blocking with one arm and pulling back his fist with another, but neither one was able to get their attack off. Surprisingly, the older genin's leg and Sasuke's fist were caught by the green-clad genin who had been knocked to his rear just a short while ago.

"Please, it is not necessary to fight," he said in a surprisingly polite tone, "Getting expelled from the exam is not good for the image of the Hidden Leaf Village." Sasuke backed off with nary a fight, while the elder genin made a noise of displeasure and stalked off in the other direction, with his friend following. Having disengaged from both, Rock Lee said no more and rejoined his teammates, engaging them in conversation.

The Sharingan wielder turned and continued down the hall with his team, all the while smirking and thinking, 'That Rock Lee really is something else…I put everything I had into that punch and he still blocked it.' Little did any of them know they were followed down the hallway…

As they arrived in an open area where the staircase up to the third floor was located, a voice behind them made them stop. "Uchiha Sasuke, please wait a moment!" Team 7 turned and saw the green-clad kid standing behind them.

"Yeah, what is it?" Sasuke asked curiously, sizing up the kid who obviously knew more than he led anyone to believe.

"Come now, my wonderful sparring partner!" the bowl-cut teen said brightly, "Surely you do not want to pass up an opportunity to test your flames of youth, no?"

The young Uchiha was surprised by the odd proposal for a moment, but he recovered and smirked at Rock Lee. "Yeah, sure why not. Let's go down there, where there's more space." The two joined up and began to walk down the stairs, and the other two members of Team 7 caught a snippet of the conversation from Sasuke, "Surely we could have done this some other time…"

Minato's son was stunned for a moment, but his anger quickly took over right around the time the two combatants reached the ground floor. "Hey, what about me?" Naruto exclaimed angrily, leaping down quickly and getting in between the two.

Sakura opted to take the staircase in a more composed manner but still shouted at her teammates, "We don't have time for this guys! We need to get to the room upstairs."

Her voice went largely ignored, and Naruto shoved his way between the two combatants and snarled, "You've already had your fun, Sasuke. I haven't had a chance to spar Lee in ages!"

"Uzumaki Naruto, I did not see you earlier!" Lee said, his face lighting up upon recognizing the Hokage's son. Of course, that only served to enrage him more for being ignored, "While I would normally relish the opportunity to engage you in a friendly spar, it has been even longer since I have been able to fight your youthful friend here, and we are short on time…"

"Quiet!" Naruto snarled, interrupting the pseudo-apology, "Let's do this!" and with that, he charged at the spandex clad ninja. He brought up his hands in a familiar hand sign and exclaimed, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Technique)!" Soon, five Narutos were charging at their spandex opponent.

However, before they could touch him, Lee disappeared in a blur. The clones and original didn't know where he went and halted in confusion just in front of where he had just been. A shout of "Konoha Senpū (Leaf Whirlwind)!" startled all of them, as Lee appeared in their midst, sharply kicking the clones, which disappeared with pained expressions on the faces, and finally the original, who was sent flying into the wall and promptly knocked out of commission. Lee landed gracefully on the ground and resumed his battle ready position. "Now, shall we begin, Sasuke?" he asked plainly. Sasuke merely nodded, though sweat was beginning to bead on his forehead.

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! I hope you are continuing to enjoy the changes I'm employing with this retelling.

**Review Responses:**

**justsomerealguy: **Respectfully, you're missing out. I put a lot of effort into creating an original backstory for a character using known information and adding in my own flavor, and this tale is extremely important for later character and plot development. Just give it a chance. You might enjoy it.


	10. (Chūnin Exams 2) Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 9 – It's Time! The First Stage Begins!**

'Now, let's find out how he managed to block my kick so easily,' Sasuke thought before he charged at Lee once more, who didn't appear to be too perturbed. The young Uchiha reared back and prepared a right hook, but right as he was about to punch Lee in the face, the spandex-wearing ninja disappeared in a blur. 'What the…?' was all Sasuke could think before he was hit hard from behind. He hit the ground hard and skidded a couple of feet before stopping. Whipping his head around, he saw that Lee was now standing to the rear of his position, his fist held out behind him momentarily before it snapped back into his seemingly trademark battle ready position.

"There's no way he can move that fast," Sasuke muttered, both impressed and slightly scared at the same time, "Last time we sparred, I was way faster than him…even though that was a year ago." He internally groaned at how little he had come in that span but quickly shook the feeling away. "No matter, I'll get to the bottom of this. Ninjutsu, genjutsu…I'll figure it out." And with that, his eyes flashed a crimson color as the Sharingan activated.

The bowlcut kid's eyes widened in amazement. "Ah…the fabled Sharingan," Lee breathed excitedly, "I was hoping I would have a chance to view them in battle. I had heard you had awoken them during your trip to the Land of Waves!"

"Yeah, well, you'll get to see them up close and personal!" the Uchiha prodigy replied right before he resumed his attack. 'His abilities can't hide from my eyes!' he thought confidently. He approached Lee quickly and was about to prepare yet another assault, but he was once again foiled. This time he received a hard kick to his chin, sending him flying upwards. He caught one quick glimpse of Lee below him before the spandex clad genin disappeared once more.

"Surprised?" a voice behind Sasuke said softly. Sasuke froze at his recognition of the voice, as Lee appeared within his shadow. "Are you curious why your Sharingan cannot pierce the secrets of my technique?"

"Wait a moment…this is…Konoha Kage Buyō (Shadow of the Dancing Leaf)!?" the young Uchiha breathed in shock, "But that's not either ninjutsu or genjutsu! It's…" His eyes widened as it suddenly became clear what was going on.

"That's right," Lee replied from within the shadow, "My moves are all pure taijutsu. There's nothing for your Sharingan to analyze because I expend no chakra with any of my moves. However…" he paused for a moment to mess around with something that Sasuke was unable to see, "…now is not the time for idle talk. I'd imagine both of us are quite busy."

Sakura and Naruto, who had gotten his act together by that point but was still rather disgruntled, were watching from below, and they both were able to see what Lee was doing within Sasuke's shadow. They watched as the taijutsu user began to undo the bandages that surrounded his hands and arms, eventually letting them hang below him freely. "Sasuke!" Naruto shouted loudly, "Watch out!"

"It's too late, Naruto!" the spandex wearer exclaimed, but right before he could initiate his attack, a pink pinwheel came out of nowhere and pinned one of the bandages to the wall. This caused Lee to lose his concentration and fall out of Sasuke's shadow. Sasuke had nothing to support him to begin with, but as he fell towards the floor, he pushed chakra into his feet and managed to pull off a semi-graceful landing.

The next part caused all three genin of Team 7 to stare openmouthed in amazement. A large tortoise wearing a Hidden Leaf forehead protector had appeared within the room and began chastising Lee for almost using a forbidden technique. This continued for a few minutes, with the tortoise continuing to berate the young man and Lee acting almost scared of the ninja animal. Team 7 was surprised enough at this rather odd exchange, but they hadn't seen anything yet.

The tortoise finally said, "I think it's time for Gai-sensei to get involved." Lee really looked freaked out when the animal said that, and all three genin of Team 7 went from looking confused to disgusted in a heartbeat.

"Not him," Naruto groaned, "Anyone but him."

"I'd rather see Lee any day than to have to deal with him," Sasuke muttered in horror.

"Maybe if we leave now, he won't see us," Sakura added in haste.

Both boys liked her idea, but they weren't granted the time to initiate it, as a man appeared on top of the tortoise in a puff of smoke. He looked like nothing more than an older version of Lee. His hair and eyebrows were exactly the same, as well as the green spandex suit and appendage warmers. His eyes were smaller and much more narrow than Lee's, and he was wearing a flak jacket, indicative of someone of a higher rank, but other than that, he seemed to be the basis for Lee's current fashion style.

"The handsome green beast of the Hidden Leaf Village is here at last!" he crowed, striking a rather odd pose while on top of the tortoise. Team 7 could do nothing except look upon him with utter disgust.

'What a weirdo,' they all thought simultaneously, giving the odd man a look of disgusted disinterest. Lee noticed how they were looking at his beloved sensei and immediately took action.

"Do no look at Gai-sensei like that!" he screeched in an almost unearthly tone, "He is the most powerful and respected man in the entire village. Never forget it!"

The tall man lapsed out of his pose and hopped off of his tortoise familiar, shouting authoritatively, "Lee! Come here for a moment!"

The younger spandex lover stopped with his berating of Team 7 over his truthfully odd teacher and bounced over to said teacher, saying, "Yes, Gai-sensei!"

Lee hadn't even come to a standstill in front of his teacher before the jōnin reared back and smashed his fist into Lee's face with an almighty punch, shouting, "YOU IDIOT!" The genin was sent flying, bouncing across the floor a couple of times before meeting with the wall in an unfortunate collision.

The faces of the members of Team 7 now all showed varying mixes of horror and disgust, with the former predominating. A new thought now streamed through their minds, in one form or another: 'What a psycho…'

Lee's cheek was puffy, and blood was trickling out of the corner of his mouth as he struggled to get up, but his teacher appeared in front of him in a flash, offering a hand. "Lee…" Gai said tearfully as his student took his hand.

"Gai-sensei…" Lee replied, equally tearfully.

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

With that, the two embraced, with an odd scene of a cliff, a sunset, and the waves crashing against the rocks behind them appearing out of nowhere. Team 7 was dumbstruck at the absurdity of the entire thing.

"Oh hell, I hope this is a genjutsu and not some alternate fantasy," Sakura whispered as she made the tiger sign and pumped chakra through her body to release herself from the genjutsu. Sasuke did the same thing, and Naruto let the Kyūbi break him out.

"**This is truly a fearsome illusion those two clowns have come up with,**" it growled angrily, "**I'm going to have nightmares for a month because of them. Boy, I thought I told you to stay away from them.**"

'Trust me, I try, but it's hard when Gai-sensei has this delusion that Kakashi-sensei is his greatest and only rival,' Naruto spluttered in reply.

The giant orange fox hissed in anger but still sent a wave of chakra through the blond's body, finally releasing his captor from the horrific illusion.

The two green clad ninja finally broke apart, and as Lee wiped his eyes of the tears that had fallen, Gai pointed over to the wall where his student's bandages were still pinned by the pinwheel and said, "Lee, go fetch my pinwheel. I want to go talk to those kids over there."

His student saluted and replied, "Yes, sir!" before running over to fetch the mentioned items. Then, before the very eyes of Team 7, Gai disappeared once again.

"Naruto, Sasuke, it is most wonderful to see you again. I see the spirit of youth has not abandoned either of you!" The booming voice came from behind them, and Naruto and Sasuke actually jumped away in shock before turning around to see Gai standing behind them. Sakura actually shrieked in horror and stumbled over in her surprise.

The jōnin then looked down at the fallen female and offered his hand to her, nearly shouting as he continued, "And you must be the most youthful female member of Team 7, Haruno Sakura! It is truly an honor to meet you at long last!" The pink haired ninja couldn't really do much except take his hand just long enough to get to her feet before scurrying off to stand with her teammates. Gai grinned at them, his teeth almost blinding them, before he said, "Well, it was extremely exciting to meet the youthful students of my eternal rival Kakashi, but I need to be going. Lee!" he exclaimed, and his student snapped to attention. "I have to leave now, but I trust that the flames of youth will guide you safely throughout the Chūnin Exams! I will see you soon!"

Lee saluted and took off up the stairs towards the third floor, and Gai poofed away to who knows where. Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura all remained standing there, dumbstruck by the exchange that had just taken place. "Did anyone else think that was rather…odd?" Naruto ground out. His companions could only nod in agreement.

…xXx…

Ten minutes later, after temporarily ridding the horrific images of the last few minutes from their minds, Team 7 stood in front of Room 301, this time the real one. "This had better be the real room," Sasuke muttered.

Sakura checked with a quick genjutsu release to confirm they weren't under the effects of any outside influence, and Naruto added, "According to my nose, there's quite a large crowd in that room, so I think we've got the right place this time." His Uchiha teammate nodded and threw open the double doors, and despite what they had heard and the Kyūbi container's guess, all three members of Team 7 were blown away by the sight before them. Inside the room, one of the larger lecture halls within the academy, were a couple hundred genin from various villages. Symbols from villages far and wide, foreign armor, and even a few scattered unknown weapons greeted the three as they stood still at the entrance, somewhat in shock.

It also didn't help that the entire room had shifted their gaze to glare at the new arrivals.

"Hey! Sakura! Over here!" a female voice piped up to their right, and the girl whose name was called out looked over and saw the other six members of their graduating class sitting and milling around one of the long tables in the room, so they made their way over. Like the rest of the Hidden Leaf genin and unlike the last few times they had seen her, Ino wore a purple tank top and skirt, bandages around her upper legs, fishnets on her joints, and her forehead protector as a belt around her waist. Her blonde hair was secured in a high ponytail.

"Oi, Ino, keep it down," Kiba, who was sitting behind her, said, poking her in the arm, "Do you want everyone in here to hate the Hidden Leaf Village?" The young dog tamer was wearing a black, fur lined hooded sweatshirt, with the hood currently down, matching pants with weapons holsters, and regulation sandals. His dog companion Akamaru, was resting on the table, almost out of his puppy years at three and a half feet long.

His concern was waved away almost instantly. "You're lucky your dog is so cute or I'd be mad at you," she muttered, "Besides, they probably hate us anyways…right Sasuke?" She cozied up to the Uchiha male and gave him a suggestive look.

He was used to it by now, but that doesn't mean it didn't still annoy him. "Come on, Ino, cut it out," he said in annoyance.

"Yeah, Ino-pig, back off," Sakura growled immediately after, darting over and shoving herself in between the two. The blonde beauty merely smirked, causing the pinkette to glare at her best friend.

"Honestly," Shikamaru grumbled from his spot on the other side of the table, opening his eyes briefly to take in the new arrivals, "Are you two ever going to grow up? You're 17 for heaven's sake. Get a life. Geez." His answer was twin glares from the two girls, and he sighed and closed his eyes again. He wore a long sleeve black shirt underneath a gray vest adorned with his clan's symbol, as well as standard pants and weapons holsters.

Next to him, Chōji was munching on a bag of chips. His attire consisted of light armor under his red jacket and on his forearms, as well as light wrist guards, black slacks, and boots instead of sandals. His spiky brown hair stuck up around his head and shoulders. A light scarf was wrapped around his neck, and his chest armor held the character for "food," a characteristic of his clan. "Don't listen to him, you guys," he said happily between bites, "He's just nervous, like the rest of us. Blowing off some steam never hurt anyone."

"It might if everyone in this room starts gunning for us, we might have a problem," the lazy genius muttered back.

"Shikamaru has a point," Shino murmured from next to his male teammate, "It might not be the best idea to antagonize the visitors of the village. Why? If we have to be fighting them in the coming days, it would be wise not to make them angry and give them a reason to target us." The Nara pointed his hand at the bug master, emphasizing his point. Shino was dressed in a long beige jacket and shorts, and the only part of his face that could be seen were the sunglasses covering his eyes.

Finally, the last remaining member of the rookie class spoke up, as Hinata added, "Regardless, we should try to relax, don't you think?" She wilted slightly as everyone turned her way at once, but continued speaking, "We won't have much more time to just sit around and talk as friends." She brightened a little as the faces of her teammates and classmates all calmed, and Naruto's smile didn't hurt, either.

Everyone had no issue with that, and with the niceties complete, the genin started chatting amongst themselves. Sakura and Ino began to whisper frantically about various things, while Hinata listened and nodded at all the right times. The boys were not surprised to see a few magazines appear before disappearing under the table. The boys did likewise, though they spoke at normal volumes, and discussed a number of topics. Neji and Lee soon joined them, while Tenten joined the female end of the table.

"Hey, you guys. Are you the rookies this year?" another new voice said, as a taller genin walked up to them, looking somewhat sheepish. He had on a simple outfit compared to most of the other genin. His headband was in a normal spot on his forehead, right above glasses. His hair was gray and tied back into a ponytail. He continued, "Only reason I say that is because every year it's a common occurrence for the rookie genin to ignore the atmosphere of the room. You all seem to understand the importance of keeping a low or neutral profile." His gaze swept the entire room, where many rough characters still sat, shifting their eyes to and fro in cautious observation, "I know from past experience that most of the ninja that participate in these exams are on edge before the exam begins."

"Who're you?" Sasuke asked abruptly, "You seem to know a lot about these exams, don't you?"

The newcomer smiled genially. "Yeah, I guess you could say that. My name is Yakushi Kabuto, a fellow Hidden Leaf genin like yourselves."

"Alright, then, Kabuto, could you tell us what you know about the exams? It sounds like you have plenty of experience with these exams, huh?" the Uchiha asked bluntly.

The older genin nodded softly. "This is actually my seventh time taking them." He chuckled when he saw the varying looks of horror on the young ninjas' faces. "Don't look that way. Even though I'm a genin, my specialty is more brains than brawn, so while I can get through the first few rounds with the help of my teammates, I usually end up losing when the individual matches come around." His sheepish expression calmed his fellow village mates, especially the ones who had strength on their side. In particular, Naruto, Sasuke, Lee, and Kiba all looked charged up and ready to go, and Neji's cool demeanor even showed some excitement.

Their elder friend pulled out a rather large stack of cards from within one of his pouches. The twelve younger genin watched him curiously as he flipped through them until he found one and pulled it out. However, to their surprise, when he turned it around, the card was blank. "I guess you're all wondering what is supposed to be on this card, right?" he asked rhetorically, "These cards only react to my chakra and therefore only show information when I handle them."

"That's pretty neat," Ino whispered to Sakura, and the pink-haired kunoichi nodded in response.

Kabuto continued, "I hate going into situations without knowing everything I can about them, so I go to great lengths to gather as much information as I possibly can. I cannot give you any particulars on the exam itself since the proctors and various tests change each year. However," and he held up the card, "I can give you a little inside glimpse of what to expect from each of the villages involved."

"Let's see it," Sasuke immediately replied. Kabuto tilted his head towards the young Uchiha slightly and sent a wave of chakra into the card. It soon was covered with a map of the major ninja countries. A 3-D bar graph soon emerged from the card, with bars over a lot of the countries. Kabuto set the card on the ground so all of the genin could see it.

**GENIN REPRESENTATION IN CHŪNIN EXAMS**

**Hidden Leaf Village**

**Namikaze Minato, Hokage**

Hidden Leaf: 29 teams, 87 participants

Hidden Sand: 10 teams, 30 participants

Hidden Rain: 7 teams, 21 participants

Hidden Grass: 2 teams, 6 participants

Hidden Waterfall: 2 teams, 6 participants

Hidden Sound: 1 team, 3 participants

He then set a few more cards out, giving some more information for each individual village.

**CHŪNIN EXAM TEAM BREAKDOWN**

**Hidden Leaf Village**

**Namikaze Minato, Hokage**

Team 2: Akadō Yoroi, Tsurugi Misumi, Yakushi Kabuto

…

Team 7: Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto

Team 8: Aburame Shino, Hyūga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba

Team 9: Hyūga Neji, Rock Lee, Tenten

Team 10: Akimichi Chōji, Nara Shikamaru, Yamanaka Ino

…

**Hidden Sand Village**

**Rasa, Kazekage**

…

Team 2: Gaara, Kankurō, Temari

…

**Hidden Rain Village**

**Yahiko, Leader**

…

Team 11: Baiu, Midare, Shigure

Team 14: Kagari, Mubi, Oboro

…

**Hidden Grass Village**

**Bokusō, Leader**

Team 2: Ashiboso, Chigaya, Karin

Team 6: Hatomugi, Shiore, Yamagusa

**Hidden Waterfall Village**

**Shibuki, Leader**

Team 4: Hisen, Kanchū Fūka, Tarumi

…

**Hidden Sound Village**

**Daijagan, Leader**

Team 1: Dosu Kinuta, Kin Tsuchi, Zaku Abumi

The large group from the Hidden Leaf gathered around, examining the cards individually. Nothing in particular stood out to any of the genin or held any significance to them.

Pointing to the card representing the home village, Kabuto began to explain his precious research. "As you can see, being the hosting village, Leaf has the most teams competing this year." He then lifted up the well-represented foreign powers. "Sand and Rain have quite a few teams as well. The former is due to improved relations between the two countries. The latter isn't unusual because Hidden Rain always sends as many teams to each round of exams as they possibly can." Finally, the grey haired young man took the cards showing the remaining villages and gazed at them. "These other teams are likely the pride and joy of their respective villages. Grass and Waterfall aren't as large as the five main powers, so they only send their best to compete. Sound is a different story because it was only established recently. Their ninja force probably isn't as developed as other countries, so the main reason for sending a team is to send a message that they aren't weak."

"What about Cloud, Rock, and Mist?" Ino asked, a question on the minds of many of the genin, "Surely they have some eligible candidates?"

Kabuto nodded thoughtfully. "Mist is the easiest to explain, so I will start there," he began, "Lately, there has been talk of possible rebellion. Confirmed reports have not come in, but there has been no movement in or out of the village for a year or two now. The reasons behind Rock and Cloud are more personal, the former being just a simple grudge against the Fourth Hokage and the latter being bitterness over the death of their Head Ninja almost 15 years ago." No one missed the scowls that flashed across the faces of Naruto and both Hyūga.

As the genin continued to look at Kabuto's cards, Sasuke piped up with an interesting request. "Do you have information about the individual participants," he asked, pointedly ignoring Shikamaru's sighs of annoyance.

If he was surprised by the question, Kabuto didn't show it. "I do, but the only potential issue is that I only have complete facts on ninja from the Hidden Leaf Village," he said, looking rather apologetic, "For all of the foreign ninja, I could only get information based on what was available in public records. But, if you want, I can show each of you the information available on you. Most of it is based on mission reports and assessments by each of your jōnin senseis."

"Good enough," the young Uchiha replied, "What do you have on Rock Lee?" Kabuto paused for a moment and then whipped out a card. Pumping some chakra into it, the data on the odd young man was revealed. The card's creator took a look at the card for a few moments before silently handing it over to Sasuke, who took it and examined it carefully for a few moments. Over his shoulder, the subject of the card also took some interest in his own assessment and peeked over the Uchiha's shoulder.

**ROCK LEE**

**Personal:**

Hidden Leaf Village

Rank: Genin

Team 9, under Jōnin Might Guy

Age: 18

Clan/Family: NA

**Proficiency (ranked in increasing level, from 0 to 5):**

Ninjutsu: 0.5

Taijutsu: 3.5

Genjutsu: 1

Intelligence: 1.5

Strength: 3.5

Speed: 4

Stamina: 3.5

Hand Seals: 1

**Abilities:**

Hachimon (Eight Gates)

Fighting style proficiency in Gōken (Strong Fist)

Sasuke noticed him there before too long and handed it back to the young silver haired man with a satisfied nod and a slight flush of embarrassment because he had forgotten Lee was standing right there.

After that, Kabuto handed Lee's card to the correct genin and pulled out a stack of eleven other cards. After he had pulled the information up on each one.

As the Leaf genin continued to chat, three genin within the crowd of exam-goers had overheard the comments that Kabuto had made about their village. "You hear that?" one said, "He thinks Hidden Sound is too small and weak to matter." This Sound genin was hunched over, and his face was covered in bandages save one eye, giving him a countenance similar to a troll. A fur cloth covered his back, and a large device was mounted on one of his arms.

His teammate scoffed at the "nerve" of the elder genin. He had spiky black hair, and the front of his outfit carried the kanji for "death" vertically three times on the front. As he flexed his hands, two air holes could be seen in each palm. "No one underestimates us. We'll show everyone who really owns this exam!" he hissed, "Let's go show that punk who's boss." With that, the two and their female teammate disappeared in a flash.

Naruto was the first to pick up an irregularity amongst the crowd, three rapidly moving figures amongst the massive herd of genin. His head whipped towards the crowd of genin as he tried to identify the assailants heading towards them at a rapid velocity.

Kiba and Akamaru also caught it and walked to the blond's side. "I guess you smelled that as well, huh," he muttered, "Who is it?"

"No idea," Naruto replied softly, "but whoever it is has been in contact with a scent that's familiar…I just can't place who it is…" Neither of them caught Kabuto also detecting the abnormality. The silver haired genin turned his head slightly towards the crowd to watch them approach but continued to explain the cards to the Leaf genin.

Out of nowhere, the Sound ninja with the strange device on his arm appeared crouched down in front of Kabuto. Before the tall young man could react, the foreign ninja had already swung upwards with the accessory on his arm, aiming for the face of his prey. Surprisingly, Kabuto neatly dodged the hit by leaning backwards. He straightened himself out with a smirk, but that quickly changed to a look of surprise as the lenses of his glasses cracked. He looked like he was going to say something as his hands went to his face, but then he keeled over and started to violently throw up on the ground.

"Kabuto!" Sakura and Ino shouted in worry, and they ran over to attend to him as the others looked towards the Sound team, who was now standing before them in full, looking rather cocky and ready to fight if need be.

"I could have sworn Kabuto dodged that attack…" Naruto muttered under his breath, more to himself than anyone else, but the others heard it as well.

"Naruto…" Shino intoned, coming to stand at his side, "…that device on his arm may have something to do with it. When he first appeared, I saw him tap it with his free hand before attacking," indicating that he also noticed something was up.

"I don't know if Shino's onto something or not, but something from over there almost blew out mine and Akamaru's ears," Kiba whined softly, holding his hands protectively over his ears, with Akamaru doing likewise with his paws.

None of them were able to comment further, however, as the one with the arm device stepped forward and growled, who was still on the ground, "That's for calling us a weak village."

The black haired male added ferociously, "Yeah, we're going to show all of you bastards that Hidden Sound is the most powerful of all of the ninja villages!"

An explosion in the corner of the room near the entrance drew everyone's attention, as well as a few coughs and wheezes from the smoke that was generated. From within the smoke emerged around 30 men and women dressed in drab gray uniforms. At the lead was a man wearing a black trench coat over the traditional ninja garb. He was a tall, hulking man. He wore his forehead protector as a bandana over his head, and from what could be seen of his face, it was covered in scars.

All of the locals were well aware of who he was, but not many of the foreigners were familiar with the head of the Hidden Leaf Torture and Interrogation Force, Morino Ibiki. As such, many of the more squeamish visitors recoiled in horror at his patchwork face, and frantic whispering broke out throughout the room.

"**QUIET DOWN!**" he roared, and everyone did exactly as he said and shut up. Ibiki took a step towards the Sound genin and snarled, "Go back to your seats and stop causing trouble, or I'll disqualify the lot of you. Do you understand?" While none of the three appeared to be all that scared, they nodded and shuffled back to the desk they had been sitting at.

"Our apologies," the apparent leader, the mummified one, murmured, "It's our first time at an event like this."

The torture specialist scowled and raised his voice to address the entire room. "While I have your attention, let me make one thing very clear. You will follow my rules, you will behave, and if we deem you to be unfit to continue in this exam for any reason, you are done. Am I clear?" His intimidating countenance didn't create any objections, and the silence that ensured confirmed his suspicions. He nodded slightly and continued, "Good. We will now begin the first stage of the Chūnin Exams."

Two of the chūnin moved up to his side, one holding a clipboard and another with a box, and many of the Hidden Leaf contingency scowled as they recognized the disguised genin that had tried to fool them with genjutsu earlier in the day. "Izumo and Kotetsu here will be handing out seat assignments to each of you so we can get started with the written exam."

Shocked and astounded were only two of the adjectives that could be used to describe the reaction that swept through the room, though conversations were much more muted than earlier. As teams whispered strategies and concerns, Ibiki continued, "When your name is called, come to the front of the room, draw a lot, and sit at the seat assigned to the number you draw. And do it quietly!" he added at the end, once again stifling the atmosphere of the room.

Mostly due to fear of retribution, the genin quickly received their seat assignments and found the correct location. No two teammates found themselves next to each other, though Naruto somehow was lucky enough to find that he was sitting next to Hinata. Trying to make light of the exam, which was not something he had been historically good at, he cracked with a wry smile, "Well, at least I can say I participated in one exam."

"Don't say that," the Hyūga beauty replied softly, "You'll be fine. How hard can a test be anyways?" 

"**Obviously she doesn't know you very well…,**" Kurama growled, and his chamber was soon filled with various insults and curses. Of course, that only served to induce peals of laughter in the ancient, multi-tailed fox, but it made Naruto feel better.

Once all of the genin had located a seat, Ibiki raised his voice once more. "You'll see that your exams are lying on the table in front of you. Don't you dare look at them until I give you permission to do so." A few of the more adventurous test takers removed their hands from the table. "There are a few vital rules to this test, and I won't be answering or accepting any questions, so you had better listen closely the first time because I won't repeat myself."

He took a piece of chalk and began writing on the blackboard at the front of the room. "There are ten questions on this examination, and everyone in this room will start with ten points. Those are yours to lose. For each question you answer wrong, you lose a point." He wrote that on the board, along with a simple illustration and examples to demonstrate the point system of the test.

"Next up," he continued, "you will be judged as a whole alongside your teammates. If it helps you to think about it this way, you are directly responsible for the fate of one third of your team's collective score of 30." Again, he added that to the rules on the blackboard.

"Of course, as ninja, the first instinct might be to cheat," he added, almost as an aside, but his voice quickly rose in volume, "but you would be wrong in this case! As you can see here, I have brought along some of my best subordinates to help me with overseeing this examination, and their job is to make sure you keep your noses clean." As the genin looked around, some of the Hidden Leaf participants took note of ninja that they had seen around town, such as Ino's father Inoichi. "If any of us catch you cheating, you lose two points from your score for each infraction that we observe." He started scribbling on a different part of the board, as his rules were taking up a lot of space.

"Finally," and his voice deepened as his face contorted into a sadistic sneer, "this is the most important and crucial rule of them all. We emphasize teamwork as an essential characteristic of chūnin in the Hidden Leaf Village, so we want to ensure the candidates are in line with that philosophy. Therefore, if any one person has their score reduced to zero for any reason, they will fail…and so will their two teammates!" That sent another wave of horror through the room, and this time everyone was too shocked to say or whisper anything.

Smirking, and having finished his rules, Ibiki turned to face the crowd and concluded his speech, "You all have one hour. _Good luck_." The way he said that last phrase jerked everyone out of their stupor, and the sound of flipping papers flowed through the room as the exam began.

…xXx…

Sakura started to read the first question. While it was not impossible for someone of her intellectual level, she was still blown away at how difficult the questions were. 'If a concealed ninja hiding 22.5 meters from and 48 degrees north of an enemy throws a shuriken at 20 meters per second, accounting for normal wind velocity and gravity, how long would it take to hit the enemy, where would it hit, and how much reaction time would the enemy have to dodge the blow...these are much more difficult than academy level questions. I think I can answer enough to get by, but I have no idea what they trying to pull here?' She began to scribble calculations and notes as her train of thought continued, 'It's almost like they want us to cheat…'

Her eyes widened imperceptibly. 'That's it! They're trying to weed out the weaker teams by forcing each individual to show off how well they can gather information. If a ninja cannot even hide a simple deception, they are a liability to the team, and they won't be able to work on high-level missions as a member of a chūnin squad,' she thought, reciting the basic tenets of qualified ninja. Her face fell as she considered the possible consequences. 'I'm just worried that Sasuke and Naruto won't be able to answer any of these questions. I'm going to have enough trouble figuring out all of these in just an hour, so I can only hope they get the true purpose of the exam.

…xXx…

Sasuke had quickly come to the same conclusion as his female teammate and was now running through all of his options. 'Unfortunately I don't have much in the way of stealth or long distance information gathering, but I do have the Sharingan.' His eyes flashed around the perimeter of the room, surprised to see the proctors rather active in writing down the names of potential cheaters. 'I'm slightly worried about how much they're writing down. I was considering using a genjutsu to mask the activation, but this is the Torture and Interrogation Force; there's no way they don't have a sensor.' He paused and weighed his options. Not seeing any other choice, mostly because the questions were way beyond his comprehension, 'I'll risk using my Sharingan, but I won't use a genjutsu.' His eyes flashed red, and through his bangs he began scanning the entire room. Before too long, he locked onto someone writing furiously, and he quickly copied that person's movements.

…xXx…

Tenten was resorting to a much more discreet method, as she and Lee were using a group of mirrors on the ceiling and their headbands to communicate. It had been easy enough to flick some thin line up to the glass thanks to a small, nearly invisible weight on the end of the wire, and a small burst of chakra up the line gave her full control. She had already located a fully answered exam paper using that method, and now she was trying to get the right angle to allow her teammate to view her paper.

A flash of metal confirmed the correct alignment, and she leaned back and relaxed.

…xXx…

Shikamaru, being at a level of intelligence far surpassing that of even Sakura, was quickly able to deduce the answers to all of the difficult questions, but he was having a much harder time trying to find Chōji through the use of his Kage Mane no Jutsu (Shadow Imitation Technique).

'Of course the stupid proctors would have placed him behind me somewhere,' he grumbled internally, 'I'm glad I set up a signal with him so I would know when our chakras connected.'

A few minutes later, he finally felt the telltale table taps of his best friend, and he began writing down the answers to the questions.

…xXx…

Both Hyūga were able to quickly ascertain the hidden purpose of the exam, and discreetly they were able to activate their Byakugan in bursts and copy down the answers using people from around the room.

…xXx…

Both Kiba and Shino had easy solutions to the cheating problem thanks to their animal partners. Akamaru was perched on the table in front of his master, somewhat cramping their space, but his position allowed him to quietly feed the answers down via barely audible yips, while bugs circulated through the room and brought the answers back to their master through the chakra link they shared.

…xXx…

Ino, unlike everyone else, was in absolutely no hurry and did not panic from the outset because she had an ace in the hole. Spending most of her allotted time letting her mind wander; she finally sprung to action at the halfway mark, when she noticed that her target had ceased writing. 'I hate to do this, but you're much too favorable a target,' she thought. Bending over as if she was going to pass out on her desk, she instead aligned her hands where she had a clear shot, whispered her technique, and drooped over completely.

Seconds later, Sakura's eyes glazed over momentarily before "she" grabbed her paper and memorized all of the answers, grinning mischievously.

…xXx…

In another part of the room, a kunoichi was debating the best way to enact her plan. She was decently sure she could pull it off, but she couldn't be sure. Finally, as the realization that time was running out came to mind, she made up her mind. Opening her mouth slightly, she breathed out a fine mist that almost instantaneously scattered into the air.

Moments later, proctors and participants alike in her corner of the room screamed as a great flash of light blinded them. Smirking, the young woman took advantage of this as she stole the paper next to her, knowing that it contained the correct answers, and jotted them down before her seatmate could recover.

…xXx…

Seated in the back row, another girl timidly glanced around at the people near her before extending her chakra throughout the room experimentally. Sensing the rapid movements of one of the genin writing on their exam paper, she quickly locked onto that individual and mimicked his movements through her sensory link.

…xXx…

Gaara appeared to be holding his head in his arms in thought or in pain, but he was only making sure to cover his eye, which was unusable at the time. Hovering near the ceiling was a third eye made entirely of sand, scanning the papers of everyone in the classroom. Upon locating a decent paper, he quickly sent out streams of sand to his siblings. Upon their papers, the sand formed into the right answers one by one before dispersing, allowing the sharp Sand ninja to write down the correct responses.

…xXx…

Finally, Naruto had been running through numerous ideas in his mind with Kurama, but none of them were feasible because he had no long distance sensory skill, and his genjutsu was limited to dispelling them, not casting them.

'I'm so screwed,' Naruto moaned internally, scratching his head in disgust, 'Sasuke and Sakura are going to kill me.' He continued the anxious tapping of his foot on Kurama's snout, where he was currently sitting/freaking out, 'Are you sure you don't know the answers to any of these questions?'

'**Uh, hello?**' it muttered back in growing ire, '**I'm not human, I never have been human, and I won't ever be human, past the lovely experience I get to have in your body. Why in the blue blazes would I know anything about human arithmetic?**'

'Geez, I was just asking…' the blonde mumbled back.

'**Yeah, well, let me ask you a question,**' the fox god rumbled, '**Why aren't you paying attention to your girlfriend? She's been trying to catch your eye for the past few minutes.**'

'Because I know what she wants to do, and I won't let her get disqualified for letting me peek at her paper,' Naruto replied immediately, ignoring the fox's snarky comment about Hinata being his girlfriend, 'I want to get through this with my own skills and not hinder anyone else's progress.' In his actual body, his eyes focused on the final question. 'I'm banking on being able to answer that final question.'

The multi-tailed fox shook its head in sheer disbelief. '**You are the mother of all idiots**.' Naruto shook off his tenant's insult and in the real world, leaned back and waited for the final question.

As the forty-five minute mark passed, the number of teams had whittled down significantly, though over half of the original number still remained. Ibiki stood in front of the room and boomed, "We've gotten rid of a lot of the rubbish, so I think we should institute the final question." The sounds of pencils on paper quickly came to a screeching halt as everyone tuned their ears to listen. "Before I tell you the question itself, there are a few more rules that I need to inform you about."

The room once again erupted into complaints, but the lead proctor quickly silenced that. "Silence! The next person that speaks out of turn is out of here, got it?" Not hearing anything to the contrary, he continued with his explanation, "You have a choice as to whether or not to accept this question. If you decide to decline the opportunity, you automatically lose all of your points, and your entire team fails..." He allowed that to sink into the minds of the genin before dropping the other bomb, "…but if you accept it and answer wrong, you will lose your ability to take this examination ever again." He smirked at the looks on their faces. "You have 15 minutes to make up your mind. Think quickly and carefully. If you wish to withdraw, just raise your hand." Walking back to his seat, he and the other proctors waited for the genin to make up their minds.

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned!

As I mentioned earlier, I included physical descriptions for each of the relevant genin, and my basis for each of their outfits were mixes of their Part 1 and Part 2 appearances, to account for the added age on each character.

Before I get into reviews, there's something I want to address that people perceive to be a major issue with the story, and I want to clear things up so people can understand why I did what I did. There is some level of concern about how weak the characters are in comparison with their boosted ages. First, I am shocked that people think that Team 7 is weak by any stretch of the imagination. A reviewer, windwarrior234, I believe put it best when he said that they are actually stronger than their canon counterparts by a significant deal, which was the goal. Sasuke and Naruto have significant advantages over their original counterparts thanks to much more knowledge in elemental training and the benefit of families, less scorn, and better instruction. As for the female member of the team, to be honest it wouldn't be too hard to make Sakura stronger than she is in canon, and as such I've begun her on a course to be more proficient with genjutsu, though medical training is on the horizon.

As the Chūnin Exams unfold, I think that you will find the members of the other three Hidden Leaf teams, and the rest of the characters in general, to be boosted accordingly, but my goal is always to have a more balanced story. I hate narratives where there are god-mode characters, they just aren't fun to read.

**Review Responses:**

**Ryuujin96:** I answered a major part of your first issue already, but I'll touch a little more on the rest. Naruto's parents have contributed greatly to his learning. At this point, only Kushina's influence can be seen, but before too long, Minato will have his day. As for Lee and Naruto, that was a necessary fight that I wanted to get past so I can proceed with the exams, and I figure that even with improved relationships amongst the genin, there still isn't much cross interaction when it comes to training amongst the classes. So while Teams 7, 8, and 10 are decently aware of each other's skills, Team 9 (what I'm deeming Gai's team) is more of a mystery in the minds of Naruto's class. No go on the Fūton Reppūken, Rasengan is and always will be an Uzumaki signature technique, but it won't be disappearing for good, don't worry.

**zigmas:** Thanks!

**windwarrior234:** Again, I addressed some of your comments above but as for the rest…I read your review over and over. Truly enjoyed your input and seeing some of your conjectures. I wish more people would take the time to give the type of constructive criticism that you have. You are on the right track with the initial deviation in time/space, but what occurred will have to wait until I deem it appropriate to reveal it.

**justsomerealguy:** Hey, as long as he's improving, that's all that matters right? I just can't take away his headstrong nature, though I'd like to think it's toned down a bit to accommodate a more mature character. And that's all I ask for, I guarantee you'll appreciate it once Zabuza makes his reappearance in the story.

**Soten-ni-zase:** When it comes to appearances, consider all characters to be post-timeskip size and a mix of pre- and post-timeskip. I included a bunch of descriptions here. Kushina, I refuse to give you an answer, which should give you your answer (lol). The origin of the butterfly effect, you're thinking too far in the past, it's a lot more recent than that. If Zabuza is messing you up, then let me say that everything contained in that interlude chapter, while original, is based in fact and should be considered as pre-butterfly effect for all intents and purposes. Haku and Shiro are just my personal addition, their genesis was just my own selfish desire.


	11. (Chūnin Exams 3) Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**AN:** Here's Chapter 8! I hope you all are ready because this chapter contains the first real zinger of a plot twist/change of the story. And don't worry, unlike my previous somewhat veiled tweaks/omissions/additions, this one will be VERY obvious.

A complete aside here, but damn, I made Ibiki into such an asshole. I love his character, I couldn't help it.

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 10 – Into the Forest of Death! The Second Stage Looms!**

As fifteen minutes drew to its end, Ibiki checked his watch and stood up to take in the remaining genin teams. Quite a few had already left, so the room was much emptier than before, but he figured that Anko wouldn't be happy with the number still present, so he decided to make one last gambit to whittle them down. Silently and slowly, he began stalking around the room, his eyes boring into the back of the heads of every single person still in the room before examining their test paper. Though he would never say it out loud, he was pleasantly surprised at how many of the remaining genin had managed to hide their underhanded information gathering to answer most, if not all of the questions.

The way he started his route meant that his path ended near Naruto, so when he arrived at the blonde's seat and saw absolutely no writing, he began to chuckle ominously. Of course, the genin in question had no desire whatsoever to turn around and ask what the jōnin thought was so funny, and both Sasuke and Sakura feared the worst.

"So…" Ibiki murmured slowly, "…I see the esteemed son of our own Hokage saw it fit to try to squeak through this exam by only answering one question." He yanked the young man's chair around and knelt down so he was at eye level with Naruto, who glared back defiantly to hide the sheer terror he was feeling. "I've seen your kind before, the ones who put on such a brave and strong façade to hide how much of a low life coward they really are." He had been slowly moving his head forward, so now the two were nearly nose-to-nose, and his voice kept decreasing in volume. "You're the reason they let me proctor this exam. They knew I could purge the yellow bellied cats like you from the pool of genin so only the best candidates would get through to the second stage," he growled. Naruto had remained quiet throughout the entire endeavor, but Ibiki could tell he was getting to the blonde.

Sakura and Sasuke couldn't take any more of the insults he was sending the way of their teammate, and both jumped to their feet. "Where do you get off?" the pink haired kunoichi shouted, "So what if he only answers one question right? As long as Sasuke and I get at least one right too, we're fine!"

The young Uchiha took a different approach; he had sensed something off about the exam and decided to probe for information. "You seem awfully anxious to get rid of Naruto when he hasn't even answered the final question yet. Isn't this supposed to be a team-oriented exam? What happened to letting our scores speak for themselves?"

Ibiki backed away from Naruto and sent smoldering glares towards the other two members of Team 7. "If you're so confident in your teammate, then shut up and let him decide your fate. He holds the future of your careers in his hands right now, so _sit down…NOW_!" he roared. Because he turned back to his original target, he missed their complete disregard of his order, but he was focused on other things, as he resumed his interrogation. "So…Uzumaki Naruto…what will it be? Chicken out of the exam and live to fight another day, or put your whole future on the line for a question that you likely don't have the balls to answer?" He reached down and yanked the young man to his feet by his collar, nearly screaming in his face, "Let's hear it! What's your answer?"

The color of Naruto's eyes had slowly been changing during Ibiki's "conversation," and that last part had forced a full flush to red. He ripped himself free from the proctor's grasp and turned the tables on him by sticking his head right into Ibiki's face. "Where do you get off calling me a coward?" he hissed, and anyone who knew him could hear Kurama's influence in his voice, "I've never backed down from anything in my life, and I'm not going to start now. I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and I can answer any stupid question you throw my way, so hell yes I'm going to answer it so bring it on!" His impassioned outburst seemed to embolden the genin still remaining in the room. Many relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief, and some even began to smirk at the blonde's bravado.

Ibiki backed away from the blonde, and his gaze swept the room once more. "It seems this little idiot right here…" he said as he planted his fist into the top of Naruto's head, "…boosted your morale quite a bit, so I probably can't get rid of any more of you. I guess it's as good of a time as any…" The entire room went silent as everyone's breath caught in their throats, and the proctor finally cracked a smile, "the 78 of you still here, you pass the first stage of the Chūnin Exams!"

The sheer shock on the faces of the test takers amused him to no end, and his scarred face broke out in a smile as he allowed a few chuckles to escape his mouth. "But what about the tenth question?" Sakura asked quickly, "What was the point of it?"

"Everyone still in this room answered the tenth question by trusting in their teammates to have faith in their own skills," he explained, "If a member of a team doesn't trust his or her teammates to have their back by fending for themselves in key situations, they were given the option to try again another time, with the assumption that they would build more rapport. On the other hand," and at this time, he pointed to Naruto and then his two teammates in turn, "even if you were concerned about the abilities of one of your squad mates to perform adequately, if you could trust in their ability to get by through whatever means necessary, you would end up staying here and passing. Being a chūnin team leader involves difficult choices like these, and having the courage to take a risk and believing in your team are key elements that villages look for in prospective chūnin."

Temari then raised her hand and asked, "It sounds like the only question that really mattered was the last one, so what were the point of the first 9?"

"I was just getting to that, but thank you for asking," Ibiki noted, nodding towards the Sand kunoichi, "I mentioned that part of trusting your teammates was believing that they could accomplish any task they put their mind to. Many, if not all of you, probably couldn't answer a single question on the exam I gave you. There was a good reason for that. Two of my own men were planted within the exam room with the right answers to the test questions, so the real goal of the first exam was to test your information gathering skills."

"So when you told us you didn't want us to cheat, what you really meant was you didn't want us to get caught cheating," Sasuke deduced.

"Correct, young man," Ibiki nodded in confirmation, "Getting caught cheating was a surefire way to get eliminated from the exam. If you couldn't figure out how to do it stealthily in your first few tries, you were kicked out. Another part of being a chūnin is having the ability to extract information without drawing attention, and a surefire way to get your team killed is to bumble around while trying to play ninja. If you can't be stealthy, there is no way anyone would place you in charge of a team and expect you to protect them."

The scarred jōnin checked his watch once more and addressed the group again, "Now, your proctor for the second exam should be here any seco…" but he was interrupted by the shattering of one of the windows. A large black ball careened into the room and shot open, revealing a cloth banner and a woman inside. She was extremely attractive and dressed very provocatively, with her core and undergarments covered in fishnet, a leather skirt, and a trench coat. Her purple hair was in a messy ponytail, and her gray eyes excitedly scanned the genin still present. The banner read 'Proctor of the Second Stage of the Hidden Leaf Village Chūnin Exams, Mitarashi Anko!' "Really, Ibiki?" she whined, "You passed 78 of them? That's 26 teams!"

"Well, we have a really good batch of candidates this year," he murmured from behind her hastily erected banner.

Anko sighed in defeat and faced the genin. Her face quickly took on a fearsome smile, and she shouted, "Alright, listen up maggots! The name's Mitarashi Anko, and I'll be proctoring the second stage of the Chūnin Exams!" She waved back at her fellow jōnin, who was ripping the black cloth from the ceiling where it had been stuck with kunai. "Ibiki here was too damn soft on you, so it's my job to cut your number by at least half! We'll be starting tomorrow at 8 a.m. sharp outside of Practice Area 44, so don't be late or you're disqualified on the spot! Dismissed!" With that, she said no more and hurtled back out another window, sending another shower of glass flying to the street below.

The first stage being complete, the teams scattered throughout the classroom reassembled. As Naruto stood to greet his two teammates, he was quickly assaulted by a slap to the back of the head and a punch to the gut. "You're the mother of all idiots," Sasuke growled, pulling back his hand.

"Funny, Kurama said the same thing a few minutes ago," the blonde whimpered in pain.

Sakura shuddered as she allowed Anko's proclamation to sink in. "The second stage is in the Forest of Death? Isn't that a little much?" she asked, appearing slightly queasy.

"This is Anko we're talking about," Naruto muttered in return, "She doesn't know the definition of the word restraint."

"Fair enough," his female teammate muttered in reply.

_**The next morning, 7:45 a.m**_

Almost all of the genin had gathered in front of the fence surrounding Practice Area 44, and while most of the Hidden Leaf candidates were well aware of the reputation of the so-called "Forest of Death," it was clear that the entire crowd felt at least some apprehension upon being forced to travel into the ominous enclosure. While nothing overtly obvious could be seen from outside the gates, the tall trees, dark interior, and occasional growls, hisses, and cries from within did not serve to calm anyone's heart.

"Well…" Anko mused as she sauntered up to the examination site, "It looks like most of you are here, so if any of your teammates are missing, you can fill them in on what they missed." She gestured to the gated training area behind her. "For all you natives, you know full well what this is, but for the sake of our esteemed guests, let me be the first to introduce you to the Hidden Leaf Village's Forest of Death!" The sadistic smile on her face was an unnerving sight to many of the foreign ninja, and even the trio from Sand felt a little on edge. "We use this training ground for all manners of exercises because of the extreme fauna and foliage contained within." Walking over to the covered desk nearby, she picked up a stack of papers and came back over to face the large herd of teenagers. "These…" she said, waving the forms in her hand, "…are waivers for that very reason. Some of you are going to die, and we need your…_permission_…to waive any responsibility to the village for injuries incurred as a result of the exam. While you're receiving them, I'll go over the format, and you can decide whether or not to participate after you've heard what I have to tell you."

After handing them off to a squeamish Hidden Waterfall genin who jumped when she approached him, she addressed the crowd once more, this time with a diagram in hand and a more hardened look on her face, as she indicated specific parts of the arena. "This is a rough sketch of what is contained within this training area. As you can see, there is a tower in the center, and the distance from anywhere on the fence line to that structure is about 10 kilometers. Bisecting the field is a river, and the rest is occupied by forest and whatever animals that might be loose in there. You'll enter via one of the 44 gates scattered around the fence line." Putting the picture aside, this time she pulled out two scrolls, marked with the kanji for 'heaven' and 'earth.'

"What you'll be doing in there is a no holds barred death match to obtain these two scrolls," the psychotic proctor explained, "We have 26 teams here today, at least for the moment," and her face once again contorted into a sneer before going back to the more neutral expression, "so 13 will receive the heaven scroll, while the other 13 will receive the earth scroll. As you might imagine, in order to pass this second exam, you must make it to the tower with both scrolls."

Once more, a rumbling of anxiety and discontent ran through the crowd, and Anko let it die down before continuing again after setting the scrolls back down. "Starting when we open the gates, you'll have five days to find another scroll and make it to the tower. And for those of you who are wondering how to survive for that long," she added when she saw the question forming on Chōji's lips, "there are plenty of edible plants and wild game you can use as sustenance. Just watch out for all the poisonous plants and animals that bite back, and you'll be fine." Her smile didn't make anyone feel any better, and Sakura and Ino both dry heaved at the thought of eating bugs to get by.

"Finally," Anko said, "let's discuss what will get your ass kicked out of this exam." She held up three fingers. "The first is pretty obvious – if you don't make it to the tower in time with a set of scrolls, you're done. Two, if you can't make it there with a complete set and your entire team alive and intact, you're disqualified. And for anyone thinking that they can just quit whenever they want, you're sorely mistaken. Once you accept to enter Training Area 44, you're in there for five days whether you end up dead or not. And finally, as we expect chūnin to be discreet in how they handle sensitive information, you are not allowed to peek in the scrolls for any reason."

"And if we do…?" Naruto left the question on the table for her to answer.

She smirked at him and replied sweetly, "That's my little surprise for anyone who's got the balls to disobey me." That shut up the blonde rather fast. Addressing the crowd for the final time, she shouted, "When you're ready, submit your three forms by 8 a.m. at the tent over there…" and she jerked her finger in that direction, where a Hidden Leaf chūnin stood outside, likely as a guard, "…where we will assign you a gate. The exam starts at 8:30 a.m. so prepare yourself accordingly."

As the rest of the crowd began to disperse, some immediately heading for the tent and others deciding to talk it over a little, one team was in more distress than the others.

"Where the hell is he?" Naruto asked anxiously as he checked his cell for the umpteenth time, "He should have been here fifteen minutes ago." In his hand were two forms; he had made sure to grab an extra one when he realized that his teammate wasn't present yet.

"Maybe his phone's turned off," Sakura mused as she too fidgeted with worry, "It's not like Sasuke to be late like this. Do you think something's wrong?"

"I'm here." The two present members of Team 7 jumped in surprise and wheeled around to see their missing teammate, and instantly they realized he wasn't all right. His eyes were bleary, his nose was puffy and leaking, and a rattling cough exited his mouth every few moments.

"Oh hell, what's wrong with you?" Naruto hissed, "You look terrible!"

Even in his state, Sasuke found a way to glare at his best friend as he snapped weakly, "Don't you think I know that, moron? Auntie Kushina thinks I have the flu. I won't tell you what it took to convince her I'd be fine."

Sakura voiced the worries both of them were feeling, "But are you going to be fine? You should be in bed right now, not fighting off enemy ninja!"

While he appreciated her concern, he waved her off and replied, "It's fine, we can handle it. Gimme that form, I heard most of what Anko said." Before Naruto could react, he had the consent waiver snatched from his hand, and Sasuke began to wobble his way to the tent.

After receiving their scroll, they were taken by escort to the correct gate to wait for the starting time to roll around, and due to the state their teammate was in, Naruto and Sakura were desperately trying to come up with some kind of plan. "I've got nothing. I don't have a clue how we could avoid every single team and still get a scroll," the pinkette moaned.

The blonde looked contemplative, which if he had not been so ill, Sasuke would have found humorous. "I have a plan…" he said slowly, "…but you'll have to trust me."

"I'll take anything at this point," Sakura muttered, while the ill Uchiha nodded his consent.

"Alright, here's what I have," Naruto said as he looked at his two teammates, "As soon as the exam starts, I'm going to send two sets of Shadow Clones towards the gates immediately to our left and right. Hopefully one of them has the earth scroll we need," as he held up the corresponding heaven scroll that had been given to their team, "and I can catch them off guard because they won't be expecting an attack that fast."

"But how do you plan on getting it?" Sasuke croaked, "They're not going to let you just have it, and your clones aren't sturdy enough for a full fight."

"Good point, but they won't be sticking around long enough to fight, just to steal it and get out of there," he explained as his face fell, "Unfortunately, that's the easy part."

"That's easy?" Sakura asked dubiously.

The blonde nodded grimly. "Since I won't be fighting but rather stealing, they'll be hot on the trail of the clones. And once the clone returns to give us the scroll, they'll be all over us, which brings us to the next part…"

"Yeah, how in the world are you planning on getting away from an angry genin team with Sasuke in the condition he's in," the young woman demanded, for once ignoring the Uchiha's exclamation of indignation.

"I can use Kurama's chakra to boost my speed, but you two obviously can't do anything like that…" Naruto said slowly, beginning to tap his fingers together nervously, "…so I thought you two could piggy-back on me and a clone, and we make stra…" That statement went unfinished, as both of his teammates slugged him upside the head.

"That's your stupid plan?" Sakura screeched, "Steal a scroll and piggy-back to the finish line?"

While more muted, Sasuke was no less nonplussed but cautiously intrigued. "That sounds like a stretch, Naruto. Do you think you could keep that up over 10 kilometers?"

The young Uzumaki was rubbing his head where he had received the two blows. "You didn't have to hit so hard…" he groaned, "Of course I can! I could probably do double that without feeling too tired!"

That was enough for the ill young man, and he nodded his consent with a cough. Both boys then looked at their counterpart of the fairer sex, and she finally gave up after a few seconds and spluttered, "Fine, have it your way!" Naruto grinned happily, while Sasuke allowed a small smirk by before wheezing a few more times.

The time quickly grew near, and the genin tensed as the guard at their gate checked his watch before turning around to unlock the opening in the fence. As the gate swung open, he looked down at Team 7 and said simply, "Good luck." They needed no further incentive and ducked inside as the chūnin closed the fence behind him.

Naruto wasted no time as he molded his favorite handseal and exclaimed, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Immediately, 11 clones materialized in the space before them. They split into two pairs of five and shot off in opposite directions, while the remaining one remained by the original. "Now we wait…" the young blonde murmured as both he and his copy lit up with a two-tailed cloak of the Kyūbi's chakra. He looked at his teammates and said, "Get on. We need to be ready as soon as the first set of clones dismiss." Sasuke immediately stumbled over to the clone and grudgingly got on its back, while Sakura sighed in defeat and hopped on Naruto's back.

No more than three minutes later, the pupils of the two Uzumakis' eyes shrunk momentarily, and the original shouted, "Alright, let's go!" Without any more warning, Team 7 shot into the woods at superhuman speeds.

As the two Narutos sped through the underbrush, Sasuke piped up and shouted as loud as his aching throat would allow, "What are your clones doing?"

"No idea," was the somewhat unsettling response he received, "Each group was supposed to disperse one clone upon finding the group, three were assigned to steal the scroll, and I should feel the last two dispersing soon as soon as the attackers get the scroll and escape." That seemed to satisfy Sasuke, as he said no more. Sakura didn't speak up at all; if Naruto could see the squeamish look on her face, he would have tried to move in a more controlled manner.

Five more minutes passed before Naruto received the next signals, surprisingly only seconds apart. "Get ready! We're going to have to speed up momentarily!" he shouted, ignoring the groan of protest near his right ear.

No sooner than he had said that, from out of the underbrush two clones burst from his left, and one emerged on his right. "We've got a Sand squad on our tail, but thank the heavens it wasn't Gaara's team!" the left-hand group shouted, throwing an earth scroll Naruto's way, much to Team 7's pleasant surprise, "They're pretty slow on this type of terrain, so I wouldn't worry about them!" With their report finished, both dispersed, and their memories flooded back to the original.

"My targets are more worrisome, Boss," the lone right-hand clone shouted, tossing a duplicate heaven scroll Naruto's way, "They were a group of Grass ninja, and my two partners had to resort to that technique we've been working on to escape. The leader was hot on my tail, a real slimy looking girl with long hair and a freaky tongue! Good luck!" With that, he too dispersed.

"Okay, we've got what we need!" Naruto exclaimed as he handed the two stolen parcels back to Sakura, who put them in her belt pouch, "Time to get out of here before either team catches up with that!" Without any warning, even as shurikens began to fly by their heads, he and his clone sped up even more, leaving the fast approaching Grass ninja far behind.

_**Day 1, around 8:30 p.m.**_

While Team 7 took advantage of the element of surprise and became the first team to the goal in the fastest time ever recorded in the history of the Hidden Leaf Village Chūnin Exam, other groups were not nearly so lucky and were struggling to get through the first day.

"This is the worst," Ino complained loudly, "They expect us to find food in this god-forsaken forest all by ourselves? What a ripoff!"

"If you spent as much time looking for edible things as you did complaining," Shikamaru growled, already beginning to lose his patience, "we'd have enough to last for ten days!"

"Then why aren't you out looking for stuff, Mr. Naptime?" she retorted angrily, "You could be helping Chōji right now!"

"Helping me with what?" the round young man in question asked contently as he reentered the clearing with an armful of plants and two slain rabbits. He set them down near the fire that they had erected once Team 10 had decided to rest for the night and began to skin the rabbits. "We've got plenty to last until tomorrow," he explained casually, "I'll have something whipped up before you know it!"

The lone female of the group sneered at the cooking meat that Chōji had racked over the fire and shook her head when he saw some small bugs being skewered. "No thank you, I'll just take a salad," she muttered in disgust.

"Suit yourself!" the rotund ninja replied as he continued to prepare their dinner.

As Ino drew out a magazine from her pack and began to read, and Chōji fiddled around with the food and meat, Shikamaru lay on a bed of leaves, the occasional rise and fall of his chest being the only indication that he was asleep and not in a worse state. However, something made his eyes shoot open, and he propped himself up on his elbows. "Chōji, Ino," he muttered softly in a serious tone, and while neither one stopped what they were doing, the slight shifting of their eyes betrayed their heightened level of caution.

The campsite that they had erected was under the shade of a small cliff, so the only area they had to worry about protecting was the clearing in front of them, which quickly rose to match the height of the cliff surrounding them. The fire created dancing shadows on the ground and trees but was fairly well hidden by the depressed terrain.

The rustling of the shrubbery at the top of the incline drew the gazes of Team 10, and they saw two young men, no more than a year or two older than them, emerge from the plant life. "Well, well, well, what do we have here brother?" the one on the left murmured.

"A few minnows trying to hide downstream…" the other replied in elevated tones. Both teens were wearing identical outfits, and by their facial features, they were quite obviously twins. They wore oversized long sleeved, light blue shirts that extended past their hands, dark grey pants, and boots instead of the normal ninja sandal. The headbands on each of their foreheads betrayed their allegiance to the Hidden Waterfall Village, gray hair blew in the light breeze wafting through the trees, and the burnt orange of their eyes danced in delight at the prey in front of them. The only features distinguishing the twins were the slicked back hair and x-shaped scar on the left cheek of the one on the left and the buzzcut the one on the right sported.

By now, all pretenses were dropped. Ino and Chōji leapt to their feet and stood outside of the outcropping, while Shikamaru sat up and peered at their foes with an alert gaze. "It's a pleasure to be making the acquaintance of the Hidden Waterfall Village," he said dryly, "but you seem to be missing a teammate. My team and I don't enjoy being underestimated."

"Aw, don't you like us?" a voice behind Team 10 purred softly. All three Leaf genin spun around and saw an intruder who had somehow snuck behind them. This newcomer was quite obviously a female, though she crouched by the fire in a most unladylike manner as she munched on some of the food that Chōji had gathered. Her shoulder length spiky teal hair held a simple orange clip near her face, and she wore her Waterfall headband as a band on her upper right arm. Her chest and upper abdomen were covered by fishnets, though her shoulders and stomach were left uncovered, and a simple cutoff white top shielded her bosom. Matching armlets covered her arms, and a short white skirt covered her mesh shorts.

'How'd she get the drop on me?' Shikamaru thought in surprise, 'There's no way she could get past me without my sensing it…'

"You look surprised, man," she commented casually, even as she ripped a slice of meat from a cooked rabbit. "We're just here to have some fun, right?"

"Where do you get off?!" Ino exploded, "That's our dinner you're eating!"

The female Waterfall ninja smirked and gestured with the remains of the lagomorph in her hands. "Are you sure about that? I thought you were just going to eat some plants?" Raising her voice, she shouted to her teammates, "Hey, guys, we have a dieter down here!"

"Uh oh," the brother with the buzzcut chuckled, "Sis is all fired up. You know how she gets with girls who diet."

The other brother nodded in amusement. "She'll be a mess the rest of this damn exam for sure," he replied.

"You know I can hear you two, right?" she snapped from her position down on the ground.

Both of her brothers shook their heads in amusement and leapt down to bracket the Hidden Leaf ninja. "I know our two villages are allied, but that doesn't mean we won't fight with everything we've got," the longer haired teen stated matter-of-factually.

Team 10 turned their attention back to the brothers, and Shikamaru muttered, "Well of course not. Do we at least get the pleasure of knowing who you are?"

"But of course," the one with the buzzcut responded pleasantly, "My name is Kanchū Hisen, and this…" as he gestured to the teen next to him, who saluted briefly, "is my brother Tarumi. And the lovely girl behind you is our sister F…"

"Don't you dare, Hisen!" she screeched, and the Hidden Leaf ninja spun back around more because of the buzzing that had entered their ears than her defiant exclamation. To their shock, she was no longer standing there but rather hovering a few feet off the ground, thanks to a set of vibrating wings that had seemingly formed from her back. "My brothers think it's funny to tease me with my real name," she spluttered angrily, "My name is Fū, and that's all you three need to know!"

"Whatever you say…" Tarumi replied lazily, almost adding the last part as an aside, "…_Fūka_."

That sure did it, as the teal haired girl exploded in anger and started to scream all manners of obscenities at her kin, who simply laughed it off. Shikamaru took advantage of the distraction and whispered to his teammates, "I have a feeling that these three are stronger than they're letting on."

"No kidding," Ino retorted, "That girl's flying! Have you ever seen that before?"

Shikamaru shook his head, and his best friend, looking slightly worried, asked, "What's the plan?"

The young genius in their group closed his eyes momentarily, trying to think of something to do. Obviously he came up with an acceptable plan of attack, as he quickly whispered to his teammates, "Ino, you're on the girl. Chōji, you've got the two guys. I'm going to trap all three so you can get a jump on them, and then I'll back up Chōji. Sound good?" His two teammates and friends nodded their agreement and stood back up slowly so as to not tip off the Waterfall team. Shikamaru drew himself into a kneeling position and quickly made the handseal for his family's signature technique. As he extended his chakra out, he could still feel the net he had cast with his Kage Binpō (Shadow Trap Method) intact in the area around the fire, so he took a more firm hold of his shadows, consolidating them into more definite tendrils and began extending them towards the shadows cast by the bickering siblings. Even as he did that, he thought nervously, 'Ino's right. I have a really bad feeling this is going to be a tough fight.'

…xXx…

All around the Forest of Death, teams were doing their best to set up camp. Either for injury, for planning, or to escape onslaught, teams were doing their best to gauge the overall health of the individual members and assess how move forward after a day's worth of experience in the vaunted woodland. None of the genin squads were anywhere close to the tower; those who held a proximity advantage over others were lacking in a scroll, while those who had already completed the collection were having to take a break to catch their breath.

Without drawing any attention whatsoever, a shadow silently darted through the bushes, without fail identifying every single camp of genin within the range of its senses. The mystery man moved with a purpose, as if searching for a specific target amongst the near infinite life sources hidden amongst the shrubbery of the forest.

Finally, the shadow came to a screeching halt a few hundred feet away from a clearing in the trees. While there wasn't anything obviously amiss, the figure was not an amateur; he could easily see through the deception being created by a genjutsu technique. While not inherently unusual to a casual passerby, the large mound at the edge of the clearing was not a landmark of the forest, and the figure grinned in anticipation as he realized the deception. "You might be able to fool the genin in this exam, but you're not going to trick me," he hissed, "Even after all these years, I still know these woods like the back of my hand…" As his slitted yellow eyes glinted in the faint light of the moon, the man's mouth opened with anticipation, revealing the long, snakelike tongue within…

…xXx…

AN: Please review and stay tuned!

Hope you liked the plot twist! Now that Team 7 is safely in the tower, the second stage will focus primarily on the _other_ teams taking part in the exam. Of course, that begs the question, is Orochimaru going to show up or is he a non-factor? Rest assured, he's still lurking around and waiting to make his move, as the end of the chapter indicates quite clearly.

I hope everyone now has figured out exactly who the second mystery girl is. It's made rather obvious.

Also forgive the short chapter, but it was a good place to cut it off.

**Review Responses:**

**windwarrior234:** Kurama will always believe Naruto to be an idiot. That won't ever change through time, space, media, whatever.

I took the time to go into the first stage precisely for the introduction of the two girls you mentioned. I actually pretty explicitly stated the identity of one of them, if you piece the two parts together. The other is obvious if you have an extremely high level of Japanese proficiency (admittedly, the kanji would help but also give it away), a sharp mind, and the ability to put name (once you decipher it) + village + technique together. I'll let you have fun figuring it out. If not this chapter, then you'll know next chapter anyways :p

You're much more on the money with character development than you might have thought, as you can see with the way the exams are going.


	12. (Chūnin Exams 4) Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** As the first stage of the Chūnin Exams winded down, the field was whittled down to a mere 27 teams thanks to Ibiki's imposing personality. As he moved aside to allow Anko to take charge for the second stage, the chūnin candidates were introduced Training Area 43, also known to the residents of the Hidden Leaf Village as the Forest of Death. Much to their dismay, Naruto and Sakura were forced to change their plans due to Sasuke's flu diagnosis. As the second stage began, Naruto concocted a plan to quickly obtain the other scroll required to pass and managed to obtain not one but two of the enemy teams' trophies, though not without one of them in hot pursuit. As they rushed to the tower in record time, Team 10 made camp for the night before Shikamaru was alerted to the presence of a Hidden Waterfall sibling team that had located them, including a girl named Fū who had the ability to grow wings and fly. Elsewhere, as a yet to be identified team made shelter for the night, a dark figure observed them from a distance…

**AN:** Chapter 11 time! Let's see how the Chūnin Exams look when Team 7 isn't the focal point.

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 11 – Danger Looms! The Hidden Perils of the Forest of Death!**

_**Elsewhere**_

Still hidden under the disguise that he had used to enter the Hidden Leaf Village, Orochimaru quietly observed his prey as his sharp eyes and well honed instincts allowed him to discreetly peer through the genjutsu laid on the area. The Hidden Leaf rogue's tongue slowly emerged from his mouth and drew lightly over his lips in anticipation. "At least I will have one of my prey in hand before this night is up," he hissed softly, "The Kyūbi boy may have caught me off guard and spoiled one of my plans, but his team was only one of my objectives." His face briefly contorted in anger at being caught with his guard down, but the expression was gone as quickly as it had appeared. "The one before me…yes…that one is much more important to me. He is vital to the success of my plan." Without any sound, his body began to sink into the ground, and within moments there was no evidence that anyone had been there.

_**At Team 10's campsite**_

"Ino, Chōji, are you ready?" Shikamaru muttered, using the sibling bickering as a cover to begin their attack.

"Ready to be done with these exams?" the beautiful blonde snapped, "Yes, please." Still, she drew her hands up into a prepared position as she leaded back against Shikamaru's back and aimed at the hovering female in front of her. In front of them, Chōji said nothing and simply nodded his confirmation as he began to mold chakra into his limbs.

"Alright, on my mark, we strike," the de facto leader of Team 10 whispered, "We still don't know which of them has the scroll, or if it is the one we need, so we need to hit fast and hard before they catch on to our attacks." The Nara heir closed his eyes briefly and reestablished the link with his shadow.

Unknown to any of the Waterfall siblings, the Leaf genin had chosen their shelter quite strategically. Despite being quite an open and easy to spot target for enemies, the light being cast by the fire draped shadows all over the surrounding area. And having a good grasp of his clan's techniques, Shikamaru had set up a sensory net in the immediate vicinity to catch anyone who stepped within a shadow within a few hundred feet of the campsite. Now, he was consolidating the tendrils of his own extended shadow into three, more defined groups.

Their targets were still arguing amongst themselves about the whole issue of the female sibling's rage at her parents' choice of name. "I just don't get why you're all worked up," Hisen was saying, "It's your name. You'd think you'd like your own name."

"You don't see us complaining about our names, do you?" Tarumi added.

The enraged tomboy hadn't moved much from her spot under the overhang, but she now blew past the Leaf genin and got right in the face of her brothers. "Let me tell you something about complaining…" she said as she began to rip into her siblings once again.

Shikamaru really didn't care what was being said, but he was pleased that they were all now in one place. Ino shifted her position so that she was kneeling in front of her teammate instead of standing behind him, and Chōji made sure to move himself out of her line of sight. The Nara heir made the slightest movement with his hands, and unseen to the Waterfall ninja, their shadows all lengthened by a significant margin. "Alright, let's go!" he shouted, and that momentarily stopped the bickering siblings as they heard his exclamation.

Chōji wasted no time, as his arms ballooned in size with a shout of, "Bubun Baika no Jutsu (Partial Expansion Technique)!" A burst of energy from his legs gave him a running start at the enemy trio, who ceased their bickering and tensed in anticipation.

"Nice try with the sneak attack," Hisen muttered, "but you'll have to do better than that!" He and his brother made to extract weapons from their hip pouches, but their arms, along with their bodies, suddenly locked up, and they were unable to move a muscle. In the air near them, Fū remained hovering thanks to her wings, but she too had lost all movement in her limbs. However, she did not look all that worried, as did her brothers.

Shikamaru smirked and unclasped his hands. "Kage Mane no Jutsu (Shadow Possession Technique), success," he said confidently, as his shadow made contact with all three of the shadows of the Waterfall ninja. Thanks to his teammate's work, Chōji was able to quickly ascent the hill and grasp both of the two males in his enlarged hands, making sure to allow his best friend time to disengage the technique and focus solely on the hoverer. He pinned them to the ground and kept his gaze on their sister. Ino was up next, and with nary a sound, she took aim at the flying female and slumped back against Shikamaru's legs. Again, he made sure to release her once she had been completely possessed.

Noting that everything was going according to plan so far, the Nara ninja raised his voice slightly and addressed his other teammate, "Chōji, see if they're holding the scroll. I'll check…"

His statement was loudly interrupted by the unexpected return of Ino's spirit to her body, and her mouth let loose a loud scream of pain. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and as he knelt down to see what was wrong with the Yamanaka, his eyes narrowed as he took in Fū's hovering form, obviously free from any restraints.

At the same time, Chōji yelped in agony and jumped away from his captives. Shikamaru was able to see large gashes on both of his enlarged palms as the twins rose to their feet, both wielding kunai attached to wrist holsters. Both of them retracted the blades, and Tarumi reached behind his back and withdrew the scroll from a pouch on his belt, the kanji for heaven visible. "I'm not too worried about you getting this, but it'll be much more fun to play around with you if you have a target," he stated smoothly.

"Especially if you have two of us to target," Hisen added, as he withdrew another scroll from his own pouch, this time being an earth scroll. Both of them quickly replaced them into their hip pouches and settled into relaxed but prepared battle positions.

Chōji warily took them in and rushed in once again. Swinging his enlarged right fist with much more dexterity than his size would indicate, he managed to catch them off guard, and Tarumi was forced to bring both hands up to block. That wasn't enough to stop the momentum of the Akimichi's strike, as he flew through the air past his brother and landed in a heap at the base of a large oak. Still, it did open the door for Hisen to charge in swinging, and he began to exchange blows with Chōji, keeping up with surprising efficiency at the mauling lunges of the larger fighter.

Meanwhile, making a last ditch effort, Shikamaru sent his shadow after the Waterfall female, who had begun to watch her brothers fight the large Akimichi. While it was a seemingly successful ploy, he watched in dismay as she shattered his control as if it was nothing. His eyes narrowed in thought as the gears in his head began turning. Changing tactics, he knelt down and softly asked his teammate, "What happened?"

Ino was still clutching her head in pain, and even speaking was an effort. "There's something else in her," she managed to whisper, "I only got a glimpse of it before I got forced out, but it looked like a giant bug of some kind."

Thanking her for her effort, Shikamaru ceased talking and settled into a contemplative pose. Taking in all the factors thus far, he could only come to one conclusion, and it was a rather horrifying one, if he was honest with himself. The foreign girl hovering in front of them had the ability to manifest wings from her body, seemingly out of nothing but chakra. Ino was unable to get anywhere with her Shintenshin no Jutsu (Mind Body Switch Technique). Well, if he was being honest with himself, she was completely rejected, and she seemed to think that there was something…_else_…inside of her. Even he had felt that, when his Shadow Possession failed to restrain her at all, and now that he thought about it, she probably could have freed herself at any time when he captured them all earlier.

All of these factors led to the same conclusion that he had drawn already, so he decided to switch tactics. "Hey!" he shouted, "Fū, was it?"

"Yes, sweetie? Ready to give up yet?" she asked, still smiling without any worry.

"No, but I do have a question for you, if you're willing to answer it," he said slowly, closely monitoring her reaction. Seeing her nod, he asked, "How many tails?" Even though he too wasn't worried about repercussions, he still tensed because he wasn't sure about how the winged girl would react to his inquiry.

Maybe not pleasantly, but he was surprised by the way Fū's face quickly lit up in excitement. "Oooh, you're a smart one, aren't you?" she bubbled happily, "It usually takes people a lot longer to figure it out. What clued you in?"

"I have a friend who's just like you," Shikamaru shot back, "Fighting you is a lot like fighting him…a real pain in the ass."

She nodded appreciatively and held up both of her hands, with seven fingers remaining upright. "I'm more than happy to tell you since you managed to deduce that just from a little information, but I'm not sure how it's going to help you," she said confidently as she began to slowly hover away from them and back towards her brothers.

"It distracted you, didn't it?" the smart genin retorted. Fū looked confused at the statement, and that cost her. She sensed the oncoming attack but wasn't able to completely defend herself as a giant fist smashed into her side and sent her flying into the darkness of the forest. Both of the Waterfall twins were in fast pursuit of Chōji, who quickly turned to confront them, but Tarumi halted in mid jump, and Hisen was startled enough by the abrupt stop that he was smashed away by another oversized swing of the Akimichi's left arm.

The large genin leapt to the side of his best friend, and Shikamaru carefully lifted Ino's limp form into his arms. "I'll keep her occupied," he said to Chōji and the Yamanaka in Tarumi's possessed body. His face grew weary at the thought, and he added ruefully, "Try not to take too long." With that, he leapt into the woods after the Seven Tails jinchūriki.

"We'll do our best," Ino's possessed body shouted after him.

A groaning behind them drew their attention, and the two remaining members of Team 10 turned to face Hisen, who had begun to rise to his feet. He was favoring his right arm, which hung at a somewhat awkward angle, and his eyes bugged out at the sight of his brother's form standing next to two Hidden Leaf ninja. "You'd think I wouldn't be surprised by anything by having a sister with a giant bug in her, but I'm not sure I get this…" he muttered.

"Do you think you can handle him?" Chōji asked, taking great care to handle his teammate's body carefully in his enlarged palms. As he said that, a large flash of light in the forest behind them signaled their need for haste.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that," Ino said with a huff, shooting her teammate a glare before launching herself at the stunned Hisen. The Waterfall ninja, despite knowing something was up with his brother, was still not completely sure about what was going on, and as such, he reacted to the engagement as if he was sparring with Tarumi at home.

That was a grave error. Expecting the slow and deliberate punches and sweeps that his brother favored in the use of his fighting style, the hard elbow to his gut was quite a shock, and the follow up knee to the same place and a fist smash to his head only served to disorient him further.

He had no reason to know the fighting style of Yamanaka Ino because he wasn't a member of the Hidden Leaf Village, but of Team 10 she was by far the most skilled at taijutsu. While Shikamaru avoided all physical confrontations in favor of using his shadows as extensions of his limbs, and Chōji was skilled at brute force but not fine movement in his taijutsu, Ino was another story altogether. Many would look at the pretty teenager kunoichi and automatically assume that she had no desire to get her hands dirty while fighting, and to some extent that was true. However, while it wasn't anywhere near a complete fighting style, she was very adept at elbow and knee thrusts and backhand strikes, protecting her fingers and feet from attack while striking in an unpredictable manner thanks to her natural flexibility.

Hisen was finding this out the hard way, as he was not only expecting his brother's style but also not fast enough to keep up with the young woman's barrage. Being in another body robbed Ino of her limber movements, but it did grant her a greater level of strength behind her blows. Left knee to the stomach, left elbow to the face, double fist slam to the head, right knee to the chin. He was utterly unable to defend himself from the staggering blows, and as he weakly stumbled back towards the tree where partially collapsed, he didn't try to defend himself as Chōji's free fist gently closed around him.

Chucking the scroll in Tarumi's belt on top of her body in her teammate's hands, Ino quickly crossed the distance to the tree line, snaked her arms into the belt of her enemy and extracted the other scroll. Throwing that one in the same manner as the first, she glanced back and said, "I'm starting to lose control. He wasn't too happy to see me beat his brother up." Taking a length of rope from Chōji's hip pouch, she tied Tarumi's hands together with increasingly difficulty, and with great effort managed to complete the release of her technique.

As she awoke in her own body and stowed the purloined scrolls in her own pockets, Chōji released the exhausted Hisen to the ground, and Tarumi awoke, shouting, "You won't get away with this! I'll get you back for what you did to my brother!"

Ino landed lightly on the ground as her teammate's hands shrunk back down to a normal size. She looked at the twin brothers with the slightest bit of regret and apology in her eyes and said softly, "You know it wasn't personal." As both she and Chōji turned to join their teammate, just as another large flash erupted in the depths of the forest, she threw a last remark over her shoulder. "I hope your brother is okay." With that, they departed, leaving Tarumi to fume.

_**A short distance away**_

For what seemed like the hundredth time, the forest lit up with an unnatural light, bathing everything within a hundred yards in a blinding luminosity. Huffing heavily from behind the safety of a large tree, Shikamaru tentatively stuck his foot out enough to create a small shadow and quickly shot it across the slight gap in the foliage. Because he couldn't judge exactly where the sparkling powder had originated, he was mostly taking blind stabs, and his worries were confirmed when he felt his chakra lengthened shadow come to a screeching halt way short of the maximum length. Sighing, he retracted it before Fū could catch a glimpse of his location.

The fights had been going mostly the same since the onset of their one on one fight. Once Fū had caught on to Shikamaru's technique, she surprisingly didn't try to restrict his ability to create light and shadows but rather compounded the effect using her Hiden – Rinpungakure no Jutsu (Secret – Hiding in Scale Powder Technique) to cancel out the flash bombs the young Nara (admittedly) skillfully positioned to her rear. As a result, he hadn't gotten anywhere near her, and his shadows remained hidden in the darkness or eradicated by her illuminating scale powder.

'I only have about 30 percent of my chakra left,' he mused to himself, 'and nothing I've done so far has worked to stop her. While it doesn't grant nearly as much of a boost as the Kyūbi does to Naruto, the bug bijū inside of her and the wings do let her dodge my shadows rather efficiently.' Rummaging in his sack, he pulled his hand out and opened it to reveal one remaining flash bomb, and his face tightened as he began to feel a small amount of anxiety creeping into his chest. 'I'm not sure I like these odds…I'm just not equipped to fight a jinchūriki…' he admitted to himself, though he continued to wrack his mind for other plays.

Way too close to his liking, no more than a couple of trees over from his current location, he heard Fū's singsong voice cry out, "Come out, come out, wherever you are, little caterpillar." Shikamaru had to quickly shift position to preserve his safety as the empowered kunoichi hovered nearby. Her appearance had taken on a shape much more like that of a bug through the use of a chakra cloak. The bubbling green energy around her head was in the vague shape of a pointed helmet, her fingers were longer and her fingernails more sharp, and one of the two insect wings was covered, though the other was left bare, indicating her use of her tenant's energy only up to a level of one tail.

"If you don't want to come out, I can certainly think of a couple of ways to flush you out," she trilled. Her eyes scanned the areas with pupils much more akin to insect eyes than human, and the buzz from her wings echoed off the trees of the forest, creating a dull roar that reverberated through the night sky. Not finding her prey to be amenable to revealing himself, she took it upon herself to flush him out. Forming a few quick handseals, she raised her voice to make sure her target heard her and shouted, "Hiden – Rinpun Dokujiri (Secret – Scale Powder Poison Scattering)!" From both her mouth and wings a sickly yellow haze emitted in all directions, and Fū's eyes quickly scanned the forest floor for signs of any movement.

Her eyes locked on to the sound of rustling coming from behind one of the trees to her right. While the powder she created was considered a poison, it could be retooled for a number of different effects and strengths, and the version she had emitted this time was a paralysis formulation. So while it hurt like hell when inhaled, it was relatively harmless and usually wore off within a couple of minutes. Still, it was enough to grab something from the target, such as a scroll, and the insect host slowly hovered closer to the tree.

As she peaked around the trunk, she did find the source of the rustling noise, but to her horror it was merely Shikamaru's vest tied to a spring-loaded branch so it flopped back and forth through the underbrush. Fū whirled around as her ears caught another sound, but this time she was too late to counteract the flash bomb that erupted in a literal blaze of glory behind her. She was briefly able to make out Shikamaru's form in front of the flash bomb, but she couldn't prevent the searing pain that shot through her retinas, compounded by the influence of the Nanabi inside of her.

Her ears were unaffected, though, and to her dismay, Fū heard the Nara ninja murmur, "Kage Santen Fūin (Shadow Three Point Seal), success." She heard rather than saw his steps as he approached her, and this time, her attempts to disrupt the shadow lock on her were much less successful. Slowly, as additional bodies landed in the clearing and her eyes regained their sight, she could see that Shikamaru's teammates had rejoined him, and a three-pronged seal wrapped in a circle restrained her feet, using her shadow as the base.

The finally victorious Nara turned to Ino and Chōji and asked, "How'd you fare?" Though weary, the Akimichi smiled softly and gave a thumbs up, and the female member of Team 10 pulled out the two scrolls that she had taken from Hisen and Tarumi. "Excellent," he nodded in satisfaction, "Now, let's say we get out of here, huh? That won't hold her for long, and it burned through all of the chakra that I had left."

"No objections here!" Ino muttered in disgust. Her eyes flew down to her hands, which had been dirtied up quite a bit in the struggle, "I could use a shower and some food. I keep forgetting she…" and the Yamanaka jerked her thumb at the restrained jinchūriki, "…ate our dinner."

As Team 10 took to the trees in their journey to the central tower, Chōji astutely noted, "Your dinner? I thought you just wanted a salad?"

"…shut it."

Approximately ten minutes after they had departed, and Fū was completely sure that they were gone for good, she shattered Shikamaru's seal like it was nothing, having put on an appearance for show. Noting that there was no need to sustain her increased power, she let the chakra cloak shimmer away, and her wings slowly disappeared. Exhaling as the slight pressure of the bijū's power lifted from her body, she reached into her own hip pouch and withdrew both a heaven and an earth scroll, just as Tarumi landed in the clearing, supporting his weakened brother. "Good job, boys," she noted, "They didn't suspect a thing."

"You're one to talk," Tarumi muttered, "You didn't get slapped around like a bunch of rag dolls." He indicated his brother, who was awake and alert but still very beat down. "That Yamanaka chick really did a number on him, and she did it in my body."

The injured brother grinned through the pain and added, "Still, it was kinda sexy the way she did it. I like girls with some spunk."

"Really?" Tarumi questioned incredulously, "Really? You think that was sexy? You've really lost it."

Fū shook her head in amused disbelief and turned in the direction that the Hidden Leaf team had departed. "Let's forget about them for now. They're not our problem any more. Soon enough they'll figure out that scroll is an earth scroll under a genjutsu, and they'll either be extremely happy or pissed off."

"You're welcome for that, by the way, sis," Hisen groaned in pain, "It took a lot to keep that illusion up the entire time I was getting my ass handed to me."

She beckoned the two of them over, and she slung her injured brother's more damaged arm gently around her shoulder, eliciting a slight hiss from him. "Shall we?" she asked rhetorically, as the Waterfall team took off in a leisurely manner towards the tower.

_**Second day of the second phase, early evening**_

The lone group of genin participating from the graduating class right before that of Naruto's age range were currently en route to the center of the Forest of Death. They had gotten very lucky with the location of their gate, as they had encountered another team from the Hidden Leaf Village only twenty minutes into the start of the scavenger hunt/battle royale hybrid test. Lee and Tenten were both unfamiliar with the members of that particular squad, and while their faces were vaguely familiar to Neji, he didn't feel any particular impulse to hold back just because they were comrades of the same village.

In fact, he didn't even do much in the way of fighting. After briefly consulting about the best way to snatch the scroll, they had come to the conclusion that a surprise attack was the most efficient method and the one most likely to succeed. Tenten's skill with ranged weapons and pinpoint accuracy were extremely useful in that regard. Of course, she wasn't aiming to kill because they were all Hidden Leaf genin, but her aim was so on target that she could lightly slice up the three before they had a chance to react. Lee immediately followed up that assault with a blitzkrieg of hammering blows that incapacitated two of the chūnin hopefuls before they had a chance to recover. The lone remaining member of that squad was only damaged by one or two of Tenten's weapons, and he was fast enough to avoid the spandex-clad taijutsu user, but in all of the chaos, he forgot that teams contained three people. Additionally, Neji had seen that this last male was the scroll bearer, which is why he made such an effort to avoid being disabled. Unfortunately for the poor young man, he couldn't see that the Hyūga prodigy had silently dropped in behind him, and a quick Gentle Fist strike to the neck put him out of commission for a couple of hours.

Now, with a complete set of scrolls and some time to kill, Team 9 had made the executive decision to rest for the night and keep an eye peeled for any other teams that might be approaching with devious intentions in mind. They were also preparing for the coming days; to try to ensure some success and security, they were planning on camping out within the general vicinity of the tower and ambushing some of the teams that approached to supplement their supply of scrolls.

To that end, Neji's Byakugan was active, even as he slowly chewed on some of the canned baked beans that Tenten had thought to store in her scroll as a part of their rations. A light fire crackled amongst the three of them, keeping Gai's team nice and toasty.

"What's it look like out there?" the bun-styled girl asked as she cracked open a bottle of water and took a large swig.

The white eyed young man's shoulders moved ever so slightly in the motion of a shrug, and he replied, "Closest team is at least two kilometers away. We should be fine as long as someone is keeping watch at all times." That answer seemed to satisfy Tenten's curiosity as she nodded in approval.

"What about the other teams we are familiar with, Neji?" Lee asked, following that up by ripping off a piece of beef jerky, "Do you see any of them?"

Not having thought of that, the de facto scout of Team 9 replied, "No, but I'll scan around." Pumping some more chakra into his eyes, he maxed out the range of his Byakugan, which was just less than ten kilometers. While that meant he couldn't see the outer edges of the far side of the training area, their proximity to the tower (by his estimation they were only about three kilometers away) meant that he could see many of the teams still competing.

He recognized the first set of signatures based more on sheer volume rather than an inherent knowledge of whom they belonged to, though he also was able to discern their identities. It was certainly hard to miss the dual reservoirs of chakra that were a characteristic of jinchūriki, and he had been in the presence of this particular one and his teammates enough to identify them rather quickly. "It seems that Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke have already made it to the tower…" he noted dryly, not missing the looks of shock on his teammates' faces, "…and it appears that they are the only ones there at this point in time."

Wide eyed, Lee said, "That is amazing!" and Tenten nodded her agreement with that statement.

Moving his gaze around some more, Neji quickly spotted two other chakra signatures resembling those of Naruto. These two, however, were not familiar to him, and their secondary chakra sources were not the vibrant orange color of the blonde genin. The volume alone was still enough to confirm something in his mind, so with only the slightest edge to his tone, he added, "And it appears that there are two others like Naruto participating in this exam as well." Concentrating, he was able to gleam a little more information from his Byakugan, though it wasn't much because they were both quite far away. "The closest one is about 7 kilometers due northwest from our position, and I believe that is the team consisting of the Kazekage's children. The other one is just on the edge of my vision due northeast, moving rapidly towards the tower, and I couldn't hazard a guess as to the identities of those genin."

"What about your cousin's team?" Tenten pressed, "And the other rookie team?"

Neji had been keeping an eye on his cousin for most of the exam, so he was quickly able to answer that query. "Lady Hinata's team is actually quite close to us, only about 3 kilometers east of here. They are about as close to the tower as we are, but they only have one scroll at this point." His gaze shifted back towards where he had seen the second foreign jinchūriki chakra signature. "As for Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi, they are moving towards the tower, approximately one kilometer ahead of the team I couldn't identify with the large chakra source. Judging by how low on chakra the three of them are, I'd guess that they engaged the squad following them currently."

Lee bobbed his head as he digested that information, and Tenten appeared satisfied by the assessment that her teammate had given…until both she and the bowlcut genin noticed the darkening of his facial features as he obviously saw something he didn't like. "What's wrong?" she asked worriedly.

"I'm not sure," he replied slowly, locking his gaze in the direction of the Hidden Sand team, "but there is someone in this forest that can't be a genin. Their chakra level is absurdly high, and I know this individual isn't like Naruto because I only see one, distinct chakra well within him."

The lone female looked lost and said, "Is that strange? I know Naruto is a special case, but you have a decently large chakra supply, right? So do Shino and Chōji, if I remember correctly."

Neji vehemently shook his head, and Lee was somewhat startled by the foreign look of fear that was threatening to take over his friend's features. "No, this individual has more chakra than the three of us combined," he muttered, "I don't know who this person is, but there's something unnatural about him." Suddenly realizing something else, the young Hyūga swung his gaze out a little further and narrowed his eyes in recognition. "And whoever this person is, he's stalking the Kazekage's children."

_**Third day of the second phase, early morning**_

Moving swiftly through the trees, the team from the Hidden Sand Village consisting of the Kazekage's three children made their way towards the central tower. Being a brutally efficient team whose members played off each other's strengths and weaknesses, it took them no time to locate a team that possessed the heaven scroll that they needed, attack with quick and surgical precision, and escape before they could recover. It had been a Hidden Leaf team, but none of the three Sand genin recognized them as friends or associates of Uzumaki Naruto, so while they didn't kill them, they also didn't feel the need to hold back.

They'd probably recover in a few days…or weeks.

Now that they had the two scrolls they needed to gain access for the next part of the Chūnin Exams, they were leisurely making their way through the forest.

"This place isn't half bad," Kankurō noted, obviously impressed, "I can't remember the last time I saw this many trees in one location."

"You live in the middle of a desert," Temari needled him, "You've never seen trees period unless you travel outside of the country." Ignoring the fact that he stuck his tongue out at her playfully, she took a moment to observe the greenery zooming past them as they moved from branch to branch. "Still, you have a point. We've only come to the Hidden Leaf Village a couple of times, and I can never get over how scenic and lovely it would be to live here."

"Enough to drag you away from the fantastical oasis that is the Hidden Sand Village?" her brother probed, "It's a little hot, yeah, but the food is great, the parties are awesome, and the girls are smoking."

Now it was Temari's turn to poke fun. "If there's a nice guy here who's nice looking, has a great body, and has a nice large, fat, firm…"

"Stop stOP STOP!" the hooded genin erupted in rising intonation, comically covering his ears in protest.

"…wallet for me to burn through," she continued, even as her lips curled up in a smirk, "I would have no objections to moving here." Just as Kankurō was about to object, the fan wielder thought of one more thing to torture him. "And…don't forget, if I live here, you'd have the opportunity to come on vacations here," she noted smugly.

As the young man with the wrapped bundle on his back almost missed a foothold thinking of a late summer vacation at a lake in the Land of Fire, Temari turned her head to the redhead on her other side, who had remained silent in the entire endeavor. "Hey, little bro, you've been pretty quiet for the past few hours," she noted softly, "Something on your mind?"

He slightly turned his head so that the blonde could see her brother's eye, clouded in an emotion that she couldn't decipher. He responded just as quietly, with a minor strain in his features, "Do you mind if we rest for a few minutes?"

Both Temari and Kankurō looked flabbergasted at that; thanks to the One Tailed Tanuki sealed within him, much like Naruto and Kurama, exhaustion was an almost entirely foreign concept to him. "Is everything okay?" Rasa's first son asked gently.

Gaara nodded and waved off his brother's concern. "It's not me. I need to check on something," the jinchūriki stated, not elaborating on why. His elder siblings shared a look of confusion, but both nodded and followed the redhead as he descended from the trees and landed near a small stream.

Temari immediately sat down on a nearby boulder after propping her fan on its side. Kankurō inspected the contents of his canteen, and finding it nearly empty he walked over and refilled it with water from the creek, along with his sister's when she stuck it out in his face. The youngest of the Kazekage's siblings did not sit down, nor did he sip on some liquid or take a quick snack break. His eyes merely roamed the forest around them, searching for something neither of the elder teens could figure out. After a quick war of glares and after huffing in exasperation, Temari finally acquiesced and asked slowly, "Are you sure you're alright, Gaara?"

The gourd-wearing genin seemed to not notice his sister's inquiry, and he continued to scan his surroundings. The other two eventually gave up and continued to catch their breath. Gaara's teal eyes appeared to suck in every detail of the leaves, branches, dirt, grass, and rocks within eyeshot of his little section of the Forest of Death. Chirps, barks, growls, hisses, shuffling, even the slow gurgling of the water of the stream didn't escape his senses.

Suddenly, his eyes locked on to a point on the opposite shoreline. "I know you've been following us, and I'm starting to get annoyed that you won't reveal yourself," he shouted, startling Temari and Kankurō, "Show yourself, or I will drag you out myself."

All three heard a slow clapping noise emanate from the trees where Gaara's eyes were focusing. The soft crunching of dried leaves accompanied the slow revealing of a figure that slinked out of the shadows of the forest canopy. The figure wore a long sleeved, cream-colored shirt that draped down to the knees over faded tan slacks and regulation ninja sandals. The outfit was tied together with a purple robe belt, and a straw hat hid the person's face. "Well done, young man. Well done," a feminine voice purred, as the ninja lifted her head to reveal a young woman with a pointed face, black eyes, and long black hair. A headband betrayed the genin's allegiance to the Hidden Grass Village, and the person came to a rest on the bank of the creek, appraising the suddenly defensive Sand genin.

"Do you mind explaining why you've been shadowing us since early yesterday afternoon?" Gaara intoned, his eyes boring into the stranger, "You obviously don't have a team, so your interest in our scroll is born of blind determination to save face with your village. You could have targeted any of the other 3 teams we passed after obtaining the scroll we needed, and then there's the most damning matter…" His nose wrinkled in disgust as it inhaled the faint but pungent smell in the atmosphere. "You have an aura of death, and you smell like a common serpent." The redhead's eyes narrowed. "Explain yourself."

The female's mouth twisted into a malicious sneer. "You are quite astute, son of the Kazekage, I will give you that. But…" The sneer grew sharper, even as a long, snakelike tongue slithered out between the lips. "…why do you sound so suspicious? I'm just a genin, right? No need for such distrust." As the woman's right arm rose up to her face, she purred, "Still…you've said too much, and I really don't feel like explaining myself, so I guess that means we're…going…to…_dance_!" Her fingers ever so slightly grasped the eyelid of her right eye, and without any warning, the three Sand genin were assaulted with a wave of murderous intent the likes of which they had never felt…

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned!

I'm going to hopefully put the age problem to rest, as you will see why below. The point of raising the age was done for no other reason than to make romances more realistic. Other than that, and the slight restructuring of the academy curriculum, the characters are only slightly above the skill level they were at the same points in the manga and anime. The insertion of a couple of years was not intended to cause a similar rise in strength and ability. Period. The age increase was for romance only. Everyone, outside of their appearances resembling their post-timeskip outfits, is basically slightly above the skill level they were in the original. Throw canon out the window and forget about how powerful they were at a similar age in Kishimoto's version. For all intents and purposes, they are meant to be reasonable analogues to their originals with slight increases to strength to account for age and (in Naruto's case) an increased parental influence.

Everyone who reads this story knows that I love hearing feedback when it is constructive and helpful, I really do not care if it's inflammatory as long as the reader is not trying to be a know it all and is making an effort to offer it in a helpful manner, and I actually have taken a number of viewers' ideas/comments/critiques to heart for later plots, such as **Kamil the Awesome**, **windwarrior234**, and **Soten-ni-zase**, just to name a few. I just wish people would think before they write.

**Review Responses:**

**Kamil the Awesome:** Yeah, man, that's one I've been hiding in my back pocket from the start. I've wanted to get her involved for awhile now, and having Waterfall as a village participating in the exams in the original opened that door! Orochimaru and his genin are an interesting thing. I wasn't considering anything different, but you've forced some doubt into my mind, and I'm beginning to craft different plans for them now.


	13. (Chūnin Exams 5) Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Orochimaru continued to spy on one of the teams as they made camp for the first night under the cover of an illusion, noting that one of the members was a high priority target of his before disappearing into the night. Meanwhile, Team 10 began their offensive on the Waterfall ninja and quickly realized that sneak attacks were ineffective. Using information from the failed effort, Shikamaru pieces together and confirms Fū's status as the jinchūriki of the Seven Tailed Kabutomushi (rhinoceros beetle) before surprising them with another sneak attack, this time successful in splitting up the Waterfall genin squad. Ino and Chōji retrieve the scrolls of the twin brothers using Yamanaka mind control, while Shikamaru outmaneuvered Fū and neutralized her long enough for his team to get away. A short while later, the Waterfall team revealed that they had a full set of scrolls still and that Team 10's pilfered ones may or may not be illusions. Around 36 hours later, just as Neji had seen the night before, a mysterious Grass genin confronted the Kazekage's children, and it became very obvious that "she" was not who "she" purported to be…

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 12 – Trouble Looms! The Dangerous Third and Fourth Days!**

_**Third day of the second phase, early morning**_

The Grass ninja named Shiore lowered her hand and observed her prospective opponents a few yards away. "Let's see how they handle that," she hissed softly, "I wonder how confident they'll be after experiencing true fear…"

Temari stumbled backwards and fell on her behind, though it was highly unlikely she even realized that happened. Despite her reputation as a tomboy and one of the toughest kunoichi in the Hidden Sand Village despite her rank and age, what she was forced to witness shook her to her very core. Her pupils dilated as her mind slowly came to comprehend the jumble of assorted horrors that had been forced into her brain, and an unearthly scream exploded from her mouth. Like a woman possessed, her hands scratched at her face as tears streamed from her eyes, and her screams slowly degraded to mere whimpers. Her wavering eyes made incidental contact with those of the female enemy, and while the intent was no longer being released, she still gasped and began to scramble backwards across the ground until her back hit a boulder.

Kankurō fared a little better than his sister, mostly because he had more experience than Temari in spars with his little brother and the One Tails sealed within him. It wasn't too uncommon of an occurrence for Gaara to get worked up in the heat of battle and a small amount of Shukaku's influence to leak out, and the puppet user would have to beat down the growing pangs of fear that would fester in his gut in order to continue the spar. So, while the wave of killer intent flowing from the mysterious Grass ninja was stifling and horrifying, his body was trained to resist this type of intimidation, and as such, he only began to sweat and pant a little before moving over and helping his sister to her feet.

The strange female's onslaught did not phase the One Tails jinchūriki in the least, but internally Gaara was slightly shaken by the fact that this…_genin_…was able to produce such a vile aura. Thanks to Shukaku's influence for so many of his earlier years, his hardened mind remained focused and battle ready, and he quickly hurried to Temari's side and assisted his brother in getting her to her feet. Kankurō had thrown some water in her face, and that seemed to get her snapped back to reality somewhat, but she was still extremely shaken. "W-w-w-what is she?" the blonde kunoichi stammered, "S-s-she can't be h-h-human…"

"I have no idea," Gaara murmured, "but I intend to find out." His eyes were flaring with an anger that they hadn't seen in years, not since before Lord Jiraiya's visit to Hidden Sand.

Both of his siblings looked somewhat skeptical of that statement, even as they flinched at their younger brother's intense expression. "Not that I don't trust you because I know you can handle yourself…" Kankurō said slowly, "…but this chick…I'm not sure she's beatable, even if the three of us teamed up."

Despite the somewhat tense circumstances, the redhead smirked dryly as his eyes shifted back to his brother and sister. "While I appreciate your concern, I'm not sure we have a choice either way," he muttered ruefully, nodding his head back at their collective foe. His teammates and blood relatives glanced over and saw that the Grass genin was beginning to roll one of her sleeves up, revealing an intricate tattoo. Realizing he didn't have much time left, he focused his gaze on Temari and asked quietly, "Are you okay to fight?"

Like Gaara, she was well aware of their current time predicament, so she gave him her best answer, "I'll do my best." That was enough to satisfy him, as he nodded his understand, and both brothers released her shoulders and arms to allow her to get ready. Temari shakily reached behind her, grabbed her fan, and held it diagonally in front of her protectively. Kankurō didn't extract any particular weapons, but he did flex his hands as a grim smile appeared on his face. Gaara's face shifted back to its usual impassiveness, and his gourd began to leak sand into the atmosphere.

The longhaired female grinned as she saw her prey preparing for the inevitable assault. "Good…this wouldn't be any fun if you didn't have any fight in you…" she hissed in anticipation. Biting her thumb hard, Shiore swiped her thumb up the cylindrical tattoo vertically and added, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Technique)!" She soon disappeared from view as a billowing cloud of smoke engulfed her, but the Kazekage's children could see one large form and two smaller ones appear in the haze behind the thin, tall form of the female Grass ninja.

"That can't be good," Kankurō noted dryly, noting the tipping of the scales with some amount of apprehension.

Temari, having mostly recovered, slapped him upside the back of the head and snapped, "Don't be a wise ass. This is serious."

"Both of you, calm down and get ready," the final sibling muttered in exasperation, "We have some snakes to skin." Indeed, all three could make out that the newcomers were three snakes whose bodies were coiled tightly except for the head and tail. The larger of the two snakes, likely around thirty meters long, was a brown-scaled python with yellow eyes and a rapidly moving, light purple tongue that examined the atmosphere of its newfound surroundings. The other two were much smaller, only about 10 meters long, but they were also much more aggressive, hissing rapidly and shaking their rattle tails in anxious anticipation.

Without any warning, as soon as the battlefield cleared, the two smaller serpents shot forward towards the Sand genin, and Shiore jumped to the head of the larger snake that followed close behind, though slightly slower than his two cousins. Gaara acted quickly in defense, and as he raised his hands to the canopy, the sand that had been slowly pooling around his feet shot up and formed a semi solid wall between the two warring parties.

What he wasn't expecting were the evasive abilities of the pythons. The lengthy reptiles suddenly shot around the barrier, one going to each extremity, and their approach now put them straight on course for Temari and Kankurō, who were surprised but ready to defend. Gaara made a last ditch effort to raise two more shields, but Shiore and her steed burst through the original dusty barrier with little effort, and he was forced to consolidate his sand to protect him. Still, it wasn't fast enough, and all three serpents chomped down on their respective prey.

_**One of the team suites in the central tower of the Forest of Death, approximately at the same time**_

Groaning softly as he came back to consciousness, Sasuke's eyes slowly cracked open as he lay in bed. The events of the last couple of days came flooding back into his brain, and he smiled grimly as he remembered that he and his team were safely in the tower as the first team done with the second phase of the Chūnin Exams. When Naruto and his clone, carrying both himself and Sakura on their backs, arrived and unfurled the scrolls to gain access to the tower, their academy teacher Umino Iruka had been the one to greet them through the inscribed Summoning Technique on both rolls of paper. To say that he was shocked would have been an understatement. The scarred instructor was so convinced that this was a trick that Naruto let him take a few swings at him to prove that he wasn't a clone.

Of course, Iruka decided to indulge in that, and the blonde was left bruised and broken for the remainder of the day.

Despite his incredulousness at how fast Team 7 completed the exam, once he realized the reason for the haste, he quickly directed them to one of the many suites temporarily thrown together for each of the passing teams. There, Sasuke was able to lie down and pass out for long stretches of time, only waking to make bathroom trips and to sip on some chicken noodle soup that always seemed to be at his bedside.

This time when he woke up, he was somewhat surprised to see Sakura sitting at his bedside, examining the scroll of her father's genjutsu techniques that Kakashi had given her in the Land of Waves. His movement caught her attention, and she looked over and smiled brightly with a light blush on her face. "Hey there," she said somewhat mutedly, "How are you feeling?"

Sitting up and stretching his arms and legs, he had to admit that he felt a lot better than he had any of the other times that he had woken up since they had arrived at the tower, and he told her as much. Remembering the meals left on his bedside table, he asked, "Was the chicken noodle soup your doing?"

To his surprise, she snorted in a very unladylike manner and said, "You know as well as I do that I can't cook. If you and Naruto weren't around, Kakashi-sensei and I would probably starve on missions. No, this was Naruto's doing, since soup and soup-related food items are somewhat of a specialty of his." Sasuke rolled his eyes as he remembered his teammate's love for ramen, but he had to admit that the noodled broth was quite delectable, though never to the blonde's face.

Sasuke's eyes shifted down to Sakura's scroll and asked, "Mind if I take a look at that?" She looked shocked but nodded and relinquished the document. Although genjutsu weren't an area that he was particularly skilled in, he was aware that his Sharingan made using the illusionary arts near instinctual. So, while he wasn't all that interested in Haruno Kizashi's genjutsu techniques, he did feel a certain draw to the illusions. The young Uchiha rolled back the sheet until he reached the table of contents. Often, when clans or families created technique scrolls, they just wrote the stuff down as it came to mind, but in this case, Sakura's father had methodically organized his creations first by the type of illusion, then by rank from easiest to hardest. Most of the easier techniques were auxiliary techniques that were meant to be used with another, physical ninjutsu technique, which he recognized were often supposed to be from Sakura's mother. The more difficult ones were stand-alone techniques that either fooled opponents into thinking that there was some kind of flora attacking them or using plant life to evade attacks.

"Magen – Jubaku Satsu (Demonic Illusion – Tree Binding Death)…Hanabira Chirashi (Petal Scattering)…Yōhaetorigusa (Melting Venus fly trap)…good lord, these are some nasty techniques," he murmured, "I can't hardly believe some of these are only illusions."

"Well…" Sakura trailed off, and Sasuke's attention locked back onto her as her smile grew bigger, "…I saw that too, and I asked my mother about some of them, and apparently in the right circumstances, there are ninjutsu equivalents. Her techniques utilize what's already present in the area, and no matter how hard scientists have tried, there's no way to artificially induce seed growth. So, for ones like that Venus fly trap one, if you happened to be in an area where they exist, it's perfectly possible, but around here my mother was mostly limited to trees and shrubbery. Still, they were pretty effective, and when Dad was around, the effect was compounded." Her academic explanation ended, she noted the intense look of concentration on Sasuke's face, and her firm façade faded back into a flushed embarrassed state. "What?"

"That was…remarkable," he said honestly, "I didn't think you had it in you."

The pinkette shrugged, but the blush didn't leave her face. "I guess there's no good reason not to tell you, but the act that Ino and I put on, at least for me, is just that, an act. Yeah, we have crushes on you, but we aren't all crazy..." she paused and made an exasperated expression. "Okay, in Ino's case, a little crazy, but we aren't the complete maniacs you take us for most of the time. We're just teenage girls, trying to live our lives." With that, she turned and made to leave the room, and Sasuke was somewhat at a loss for words.

The Uchiha loner suddenly glanced around the room and into the common space of the suite through the doorway. "Hey, where's Naruto at?" the recovering member of Team 7 asked, "I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't have burst in here the moment that he heard my voice."

Sakura paused and poked her head into the common space. When she looked back into Sasuke's room, her face bore a look of utter confusion. "I have no idea. He was just here a few minutes ago…"

…xXx…

The Grass ninja Shiore smirked and brought her hands together, murmuring, "Release." Instantly, the illusions of the dying Sand genin shimmered away, and she was suddenly very aware of the kunai millimeters away from cutting her neck. "I'm impressed," she said, her voice betraying the truth of her statement, "A genjutsu of that level is something you rarely see in genin-level ninja."

"I'd be flattered, but it wasn't just me," Temari replied, though the flattery obviously did slightly inflate her ego. Kankurō came into view as he shifted his position to face their enemy, and his sister stood at his side with her fan mirroring her position in the earlier illusion.

"Yeah, that's a pretty chakra intensive technique. She needed some assistance from our energy pool of a little bro over there," the painted genin added, flexing the fingers on his free hand while keeping the ninja knife firmly at Shiore's neck.

"Speaking of chakra…" a voice behind the Grass ninja murmured softly, "I have some questions about yours." Gaara made his presence known, walking over to flank his brother on the other side. "You've been following us for a long time now, though you covered your tracks extremely well. I doubt that either of my siblings were aware of your presence until I mentioned it to them." The nodding of the blonde's head and the shrugging of the hooded genin's shoulders confirmed this statement, and Gaara wasn't done yet. "Additionally, the fact that you can summon three familiars at once is…curious, to say the least. Even I probably couldn't do a feat like that without gathering my chakra beforehand. There's also the matter of your stench." His nose wrinkled in disgust at the thought, "I don't have senses as sharp as others that I know, but I know that despite your appearance and smell you're not a female, and you reeked of snakes before you summoned those three." His eyes hardened, and Kankurō stepped back as sand began to pool at Shiore's feet. "I'm going to ask you one more time…who are you?"

The longhaired female smirked, "Wouldn't you like to know?" Gaara's eyes narrowed instantly, and a sandy coffin enclosed the mysterious young woman and crushed her…but no blood or gore was visible. Instead, snakes scattered to the ground and slithered away in various directions through the underbrush.

"Temari, Kankurō, take care of the two smaller snakes. I'll take him and the big one," the redhead barked, but his orders fell on deaf ears, as both of his siblings had already bounded away to engage with the smaller serpents. He turned around in time to see them disappear into the trees, followed closely by the smaller reptiles.

Unsurprisingly, when he looked towards the larger snake, he saw the form of the Grass ninja emerge from the nape of the lengthy animal's neck to stand there, smirking down at Gaara. "Attack," the newly minted man said simply, and the python shot forward with a loud hiss.

…xXx…

"Well, this should be fun," Kankurō noted dryly, landing in a clearing a couple hundred meters away from the original battlefield. As his sister landed next to him, he reached behind him and extracted two scrolls from a clasp on his belt. Infusing some chakra into both of the rolled documents, two wooden puppets appeared in front of him, supported by chakra strings connecting them to their operator's fingertips. Their rickety structure hid the true mechanisms and secrets within each one. Both were draped in tattered cloaks and had shaggy, hair-like cloth on their heads. One had a bucket-shaped head, red horns, and six arms, while the other had three eyes and four arms.

"You have a sick definition of fun, you know that?" she chided him. Still, the fan bearer reared her arms back and swung her weapon in a wide arc in the general direction of the fast charging snakes, shouting, "Fūton – Kamaitachi no Jutsu (Wind Style – Sickle Weasel Technique)!" On the downswing, giant scythes of hardened wind burst from the outer edges of the iron fan and shot into the woods, and she was very pleased to hear a startled hiss of pain. Mere moments later, one of the two snakes tumbled out of the woods with a large gash running along the side of its long body, closer to the head than the tail.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," the Kazekage's middle child intoned with a smirk as he directed his puppets behind his back, not even bothering to turn around. The second oversized rattlesnake shot out of the underbrush, fangs bared to swallow or maim the Sand genin, but the puppets named Karasu (Crow) and Kuroari (Black Ant) caught in their multiple sets of arms a huge fang each and easily held the snake at bay.

Kankurō's hands shifted just the slightest bit, and both puppets opened their mouths, revealing some manner of launcher. "Temari!" he shouted, and his sister understood what was needed without any further urging. At the exact moment that both Karasu and Kuroari fired their projectiles, the blonde recited the name of a simple, yet efficient technique, "Fūton – Kazashimo no Jutsu (Wind Style – Downwind Technique)!" The small purple balls exploded in the mouth of the rattlesnake, which immediately started coughing, wheezing, and hissing, in agonized disgust, and Temari's base level technique contained the fumes so they didn't blow back and cause problems for the Sand genin.

With one of the serpents temporarily out of commission, the older children of the Kazekage and their wooden humanoid allies turned back to address the other snake…but the reptile had disappeared. All that was left was a shed skin, with no indication as to where its previous owner had disappeared. Having no other choice, the two siblings quickly moved to stand back to back, with Kankurō's puppets on either side of their exposed sides.

They remained vigilant, but there was no sign of the first rattlesnake, and as five minutes passed, the second one began to show signs of recovering from the poisonous sneak attack. In a raspy hissing voice, it spat at no one in particular, "That was disssssgusting. It's a good thing that I can filter out poisssson from my body, or I'd be dead right now." Both of its beady eyes focused on the Sand siblings as it turned its head towards them. "You two are a lot tougher than I gave you credit for. Perhapssss we should stop messssssing around…_right brother_?!"

"I couldn't agree more!" a muffled voice sang out. Recognizing where it was coming from, Temari and Kankurō tensed, but the sheer speed of the lithe serpent was too much for them, as the first rattlesnake, completely healed, burst from the ground not too far from their position. The only thing that prevented their bodies from being crushed was their quick thinking to use the two puppets and the fan as safeguards to hold off the writhing, constricting body of the snake as it coiled around them.

Of course, the second serpent wasn't going to sit back and relax. It reared back its head and hissed, "Gashin Dokueki (Fang Needle Venom)!" Without any time to react, Temari and Kankurō couldn't do anything as numerous needles shot out of the snake's large fangs and shot down towards them…

…xXx…

Gaara stumbled back into the trunk of a large tree, bleeding from numerous small stab and puncture wounds all over his body. Though it wasn't his specialty, he had been forced into using taijutsu when it became apparent that dodging or using his sand to capture the snake just weren't having an effect on the large reptile. While he wasn't terrible, his siblings often outclassed him in hand to hand combat during casual spars, and even with the resentment towards his father fueling his motivation, he was always completely overwhelmed by Rasa. The only reason he had been able to keep up until this point was through the use of gauntlets formed from his gourd sand, compressed into a form close to sandstone to increase the striking power.

That isn't to say that his opponent was completely untouched. Despite the obvious deception, the disguised Grass genin had a very predictable attack pattern. His basic plan was just to stand on top of the giant python's head as it swerved its way back and forth through the clearing and forest, and the long haired ninja would either snipe using kunai or use a sword that had been disgorged from a smaller snake that had emerged from his mouth early in the fight. Normally, Gaara wouldn't have an issue countering an attack pattern such as that, but the sheer speed of the serpent was causing him a multitude of issues. The kunai were not a serious problem thanks to the sand shield and armor that were granted to him as the jinchūriki of Shukaku, and all of those were deflected with little difficulty.

The major issue was the sword. No matter what kinds of defenses Gaara threw up, the blade was somehow sliding effortlessly through everything he erected between the suspicious person and himself. As a result, his body was slowly but surely turning into a pincushion, and he had to resort to the sandy boxing gloves as a more solid measure just to bat away the deceptively deadly weapon.

The enemy in question was still standing on top of the python, smirking down at him. While he didn't outwardly show it, Gaara was somewhat repulsed as he watched the ninja masquerading as Shiore bring the sword to his lips and licked the blood from the blade. Even more disturbing was the apparent pleasure that he got from ingesting the Sand ninja's life force.

"Such delectable blood…" he moaned in pleasure, "Truly a wonderful chakra you possess boy."

"I don't know what your agenda is, but I'm not letting you anywhere near me to do that again." Gaara snapped in anger, unconsciously allowing the sarcastic and caustic nature of his tenant to flow into his tone.

If it was possible, the mouth of Shiore, or whoever he was, widened into an even larger smirk. "You're confident in your skills," he said, neither impressed nor condescending but rather brutally honest, "I can truly appreciate someone of that mindset, but you're still yet a genin, and you have much to learn in the ninja world!" Before he had even finished that statement, the python lunged forward once more, and the impostor jabbed forward with the sword. Only thanks to the deliberate, repetitive attack pattern was Gaara able to roll out of the way of yet another sword strike, though he had to bash it away with his sand encrusted fists and it cost him some of the earthen armor.

As the massive snake barreled into the trees, the Sand genin rolled to a halt on the bank of the river and grimaced; the continued avoidance of the creep's sword strikes and the repeated glancing blows were starting to get to him, even with the increased rate of regeneration that he possessed.

An increasingly louder whistling sound entered his ears from the general direction that Shiore and his familiar had disappeared, and Gaara barely got his head around in time to catch sight of a glint of metal. In horror, he realized that the predicable attack patterns were setting up this moment, and he overcharged his limbs with chakra to prepare a feint. It still wasn't enough, so while he was able to mostly dodge, he took another nasty slash to the upper arm, and like the previous cuts, it sliced through his sand armor and shield like it was warm butter. Clutching his arm to staunch the blood loss, he ascended into the tree branches and was forced to keep moving, as the blade was still chasing after him. He wasn't able to see the snake or the wielder, but what he could see over his shoulder was an elongated metal flash trailing off into the dark trees.

"What kind of weapon is that?" he murmured to himself as he darted through the trees, "It can slice through Shukaku's shield and armor like it's not even there, it can stretch and bend, and there's no sign of any damage whatsoever from my previous attacks." He kept up his weaving through the tree trunks, trying to catch the mysterious weapon in a tangle or the limit of its length, but nothing seemed to work. A somewhat desperate plan began to form in his head as he continued his futile attempts to lose the weapon in the flora of the forest, and after a moment of consideration, he decided that it was the best course of action.

Abruptly, he changed his course and barely dodged the blade as he charged back in the direction he had come. As he suspected, the tip of the sword followed him, even as he weaved back and forth along the length of the sword that had already followed him. Still, his exhaustion was starting to get to him, and his movements were starting to become sluggish as the sword began to catch up, and he was unable to do anything to stop the blade from running him through as it pierced through the gourd on his back, causing it to explode into fragments, and out the front of his chest.

Half a kilometer away, the ninja under the guise of Shiore grinned and whispered, "There we go," feeling the sword inflict the serious injury to his prey. Sensing that his job was nearly done, he sent a mental chakra symbol to the mythical weapon to retract and bring the injured boy back to the source of the sword, though he was well aware that it would take awhile for it to return because of the distance and extra weight.

A minute or two later, he could faintly see an indistinct form on the end of the sword as it approached full retraction. "Excellent," he murmured, "My plan is working out better than expe…what?" he trailed off as the tip caught some light filtering through the canopy. That was just enough to distract him from the quickly approaching figures, and the current fight had stolen much of his concentration. As a result, he had been completely unaware of the fact that his smaller two summons had been outsmarted at their own game, and their prey was now the predator.

"Kurohigi – Tōsenpū (Black Secret Technique – Blade Whirlwind)!"

"Fūton – Kamaitachi no Jutsu!"

The impostor was forced to abandon his serpentine steed, as it was torn to shreds by blades both physical and natural from the weapons of Temari and Kankurō. Still his concentration didn't waver from the aberration he saw attached to the end of his sword. His eyes widened as he saw not a body but a giant lump of sand in the approximate shape of Gaara's form.

"I finally have you," a harsh voice spat out from behind the longhaired ninja, and Shiore spun around and saw the redhead, perfectly intact outside of the previous cuts and bruises already sustained in the course of their battle, standing a few yards away on a branch of similar height, with a hand extended towards the Grass ninja. "Sabaku Kyū (Desert Coffin)!" he barked, and the reappearance of the seemingly dead Sand genin was enough to distract Shiore from the oncoming sand, which began to creep up the right side of the tall genin's body until it was covering most of his lower body and arms.

Still, the desperate woman/man made a lunge for the Kazekage's youngest, and Temari and Kankurō knew there was no chance to get there in time thanks to their own physical and chakra exhaustion. Realizing that it was going to be close, Gaara switched tactics and cut his loses, clenching his fist and shouting, "Sabaku Sōsō (Desert Funeral)!" Shiore grunted in obvious pain as his right limbs were shattered and smashed beyond recognition, but he wasn't going to be deterred, and his free left hand jabbed forward and lightly pierced the jinchūriki's stomach. Gaara likewise winced and coughed in pain, but he realized that without his own attack, the damage could have been much worse, though the pain lingered longer than he expected. Still, despite the pain and odd feeling beginning to fester in his gut, he wrenched his body away from Shiore.

Temari and Kankurō finally arrived up in the branches of the canopy, looking more than a little enraged. The two wooden puppets wasted no time in grabbing the shoulders of the crippled Grass ninja and chucking him into the air, and a compressed blast of wind from the blonde's fan sent him flying away. After waiting for a second to make sure the creep was finally gone, they rushed to their little brother's side. "You okay, Gaara?" Temari asked softly.

"That was a nasty stab you took," Kankurō noted with some apprehension, "How do you feel?"

He groaned softly and muttered, "I'm okay. I just need a nap. A really long one." Despite the seriousness of the situation, the hooded puppet user chuckled in amusement and the blonde rolled her eyes in exasperation. Both of the two older siblings hooked one of their younger brother's arms over their shoulders and slowly began to resume their journey to the center of the Forest of Death.

_**Fourth day of the second phase, around noon**_

As they continued to make their way to the tower at a mostly leisurely pace, Neji's constantly active Byakugan caught a glimpse of something as he made one of his regular scans of the other Hidden Leaf squads still in the forest, and he screeched to a halt on a large boulder. While he was forced to split his attention between his scouting responsibilities and spying on other squads, he was well aware of the happenings in the forest when it concerned people with whom he was acquainted. The previous day, he saw the victory of the Hidden Sand squad against the weird Grass genin, and the other massive chakra source that wasn't Gaara or Naruto had reached the tower, along with Shikamaru's squad a few hours later. Speaking of the hyperactive blonde, he had disappeared off the figurative radar a couple of hours earlier, and despite his best efforts while trying to keep his scouting up, there had been next to no sign of him in the Forest of Death, at least in the range of his Byakugan.

The problem at hand was a much more serious problem, bad enough to stop him in his tracks. Tenten and Lee almost missed his abrupt cessation of movement and had to backtrack to see what the problem was. "Why'd you stop, Neji?" the female member of Team 9 asked, "Don't tell me you need to go to the bathroom again?"

He held up a hand to silence her as he focused his chakra to his eyes to catch more details, and it was obvious that his personal needs were not the problem this time. As his Byakugan's range tightened, and the clarity of the images sharpened, he saw something truly disturbing when he checked on his cousin's squad. Where he saw four distinct forms before, he now saw seven, and that didn't sit well in his stomach. Additionally, the vile chakra of the strange individual that had been following the Kazekage's children had now departed from that path and was on a crash course for that group. "Lady Hinata's team is being attacked," he gritted out, "and that unusual chakra signal I noticed following the Hidden Sand team is now approaching their position." Lee's eyes squinted in thought, and Tenten looked mildly concerned for her teammate. Neji's expression was approaching panicked, at least for his normal stoic countenance, and when he spoke again, his voice contained just an edge of worry. "I know this isn't the best idea, but since we've already got the scrolls we need…"

"Let's go," Lee interrupted him, flashing a blinding smile and giving his pale-eyed teammate and friend a thumbs-up, "We can definitely handle them and help out your cousin! We would never abandon friends and village mates, and that goes double for family, right?"

"Yeah, of course," Tenten added, placing a hand lightly on Neji's shoulder, "We have your back now, and we always will."

The Hyūga prodigy nodded, not showing his gratitude but knowing that they could tell he was thankful for their help. He shot off the rock, changing direction so they were now on course for Team 8, the squad that they were fighting, and the mysterious shadowy figure that was intent on interfering. 'Lady Hinata, I won't let you down,' he thought, 'You and your family are the reason my family is still intact, and I can never repay your for that debt. Still, I will do everything in my power to protect you, for your future…for my future…and for the future of the Hyūga clan…I will not fail you!'

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! The next chapter is another flashback chapter, and I'll leave you all to guess where it's going, though the end of the chapter should provide some clues. Good luck!

**Review Responses:**

**Kamil the Awesome:** No problem, man!

**Kronus96: **After a lot of consideration, I did change it to just the main characters, but I took that in the most literal sense and changed the tags to the characters who are the focus of the story. Don't worry. Once we get into the heart of the exams, you'll see some serious changes.

**BPDIDANOCSMOM:** I was just chuckling at this comment and how little people pay attention to my author's notes. No nerf has been implemented. And the fact that you're calling me immature is just laughable at best. I'd be more than happy to read your better version of my story, and thanks for your input! I'll give it all the consideration that it deserves.


	14. (Chūnin Exams 6) Chapter 13

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Shiore began her assault by temporarily paralyzing the Hidden Sand team to demonstrate her abilities before summoning some serpentine allies to aid in her attack, seemingly taking out the siblings. In the tower, Sasuke finally has recovered from his illness, and along with Sakura, they wonder to where Naruto had gone off. The siblings' death was revealed to be a joint illusion by Temari and Gaara, and after a failed attempt at interrogation, the serpents and siblings split up. Temari and Kankurō, with some difficulty, take out their targets, while Gaara has a lot of trouble dealing with Shiore/Orochimaru until his brother and sister show up to assist. With their help, the three are able to barely repel him and deal some serious damage to two of his limbs, but not before the rogue gets one final hit in on the Sand jinchūriki. The next day, elsewhere, Neji halts Guy's squad as he takes note of a disturbance concerning his cousin's team (having previously noted that the two other jinchūriki had made it to the tower, and that Naruto's normal chakra signature was not showing up in his range of vision). Along with Team 8, there was another squad currently engaged with them, and Orochimaru's signal was heading their way, though Neji wasn't aware of the identity of that individual. After requesting Tenten and Lee's help, they begin to speed towards the conflict.

**AN:** My apologies for not posting, wanted to enjoy break. Nice and long for you this time around.

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 13 – All Out Brawl! Battle Royale in the Forest of Death!**

_**Fourth of the second phase, around 15 minutes before Neji's observation**_

"Man, whoever thought of this exam needs to get their head examined," Kiba complained loudly, his canine companion howling in agreement, "Do they want us to die a painful, lonely death in here?"

He received not much in the way of sympathy from his two teammates. Hinata gave him a somewhat sympathetic smile but quickly retorted with a pointed question at the large puppy, "Akamaru, I think your master needs a nap, don't you think? He seems a little cranky." The cream-coated dog barked happily multiple times, shooting looks at his partner, even as he received glares in return.

"Thanks a lot for that, Hinata," the Inuzuka youth muttered dejectedly, "Now you've turned my best friend against me." The Hyūga teen merely giggled at her teammate's (mostly) fake distress.

Kiba then turned his attention to the third member of Team 8, who as usual was remaining relatively silent when it came to conversation. "Oi, Shino, I know you want to get out of this hellhole, right?"

The Aburame teen slightly turned his head and gave the other two his version of a shrug, though it merely appeared to be just a muscle twitch. "This place is quite enjoyable to me. Why? My family often comes in here and does extensive research on the many exotic insect species. If it didn't go against the rules of the exam, I would have called in some of my friends to assist us in getting to the center of the training area."

"No thanks," Kiba replied, stifling a shudder of horror (as did Hinata) at the thought of what types of 'friends' his teammate was referring to.

Team 8 had been rather lucky up to that point in the second stage of the Chūnin Exam. They had managed to avoid any friendly or overly powerful enemy teams for most of the first three days, but they did not have much luck in finding someone who had a heaven scroll to match the earth scroll that they had received at the onset of the survival test. Every time a potential target team had come into view, Hinata had given her teammates the bad news that they either only had earth scrolls or no scrolls at all. Fortunately, they had finally run into a Hidden Sand team, and their long distance scout confirmed that they held two earth scrolls in addition to a heaven scroll. She also was pleased to inform them that they appeared to be rather fatigued, and all three surmised that they were trying to find shelter for the night to recover from a recent battle over at least one of their possessed scrolls.

After a heated debate between Kiba and his other squad mates, after which he finally gave in to their plan, Team 8 stealthily made their way into the Sand genin's makeshift campsite. Just as Hinata had surmised, the three foreigners were completely gassed and thoroughly roughed up, signaling that while they had been able to capture the scrolls they needed, they also had paid a severe price for it. As a result, they didn't sense the Leaf genin sneaking in, swiping their three scrolls (that had been distributed evenly amongst the squad members), and leaving without a trace.

Needless to say, they woke up to a huge surprise the next morning.

Now, the weary team of Hidden Leaf ninja had been slowly but surely making their way to the center of the forest. They could have just as easily sped there at top speed, as Kiba had suggested in order to get out of 'this infernal hellhole of a training ground,' but Shino had quickly shot that idea down, citing the need to not get trapped in an engagement similar to the team that they had just taken down. With Hinata's added consent behind that, there was no way that they would be taking any unnecessary risks.

Currently, they were no less than an hour or two from the center of the forest, if they continued to travel at the rate they had been for the past day. They were sequestered in a slight dip in the terrain of about two or three yards, where they could see the area in front of them and could be protected at the back by the eroded ground underneath a massive tree. The roots acted as a natural barrier and were beneficial in providing cover from the glancing sightlines of passing enemy teams.

Squelching the mild disgust in her mind, Hinata added, "They could have been helpful, but they might have also brought unwanted attention if someone had seen three giant insects flying through the forest together."

The insect user nodded in agreement, obviously having already thought of that issue. "That is very true. The dragonflies in here are quite magnificent, but it would be extremely obvious to teams with a keen eye."

Kiba stuck his tongue out in disgust, an action somewhat mirrored by his dog friend. "No offense, Shino, but it's still hard to get my head wrapped around the fact that you'd come in here for _fun_. There's not a woman in the world that could seduce me enough to get me in here willingly."

Obviously the statement did not bother the Aburame heir all that much. "I understand your concerns, Kiba. Why, you might ask? There is not a woman in the world that could seduce me enough to live amongst all the fleas that your clan most assuredly has to deal with on a daily basis." Akamaru began barking in earnest to express his agreement with that statement, and Hinata could only giggle as her wolfish teammate drooped in obvious defeat.

"Alright, alright, you made your point," the depressed youth spat out, having his hand in playful dismissal, "Now hush, we need to check our surroundings. It's been awhile, and I'm not in the mood to get ambushed." As he held up the handseal to enhance his canine-like senses and to concentrate, his two teammates nodded in agreement, Hinata sending a wave of chakra to her special white eyes and Shino discreetly releasing a swarm of tiny insects from the openings in his clothing as a similar group came back to report.

It took a few moments, but the eyes of all three widened in pure shock as their respective senses relayed back a startling message. "Uh, guys, we have a problem…" Kiba muttered, not even bothering to shield the fear in his voice.

"Should we try to relocate?" Shino asked, though Team 8 was well aware that there was no time to do such a thing. His worries were confirmed by Hinata's shaky twitch of her head in the negative, and the tremble was not limited to her cranium, as her entire body quivered in terror.

Kiba began to say, "We should try to…" but he was interrupted, as all three humans and the lone dog were assaulted by a horrific sound, seemingly coming from all directions of the forest. It rattled through their bodies and lasted for what seemed like an eternity. The noise itself was a grating screech, as if someone had taken an entire room of grade schoolers and forced them to scratch their chalkboard in unison, amplified by at least double. All three humans and the one dog that comprised Team 8 fell to their hands and knees.

Shino was the first one to temporarily free himself from the cacophony of grating sounds. While it wasn't a perfect fix, he was able to use the insects that he housed in his body as a sort of counter to the problem at hand by telling them to vibrate at as high a frequency as their little bodies could handle. The end result was a somewhat elevated amount of pain in his ears, and he still couldn't hear hardly anything at all, but he was also able to move around somewhat freely thanks to the semi-stabilization granted by his tiny partners.

As he groggily rose to his feet, the first thing that caught his attention was the flailing of his female teammate. Hinata was desperately jabbing at the sides of her head with jabbing fingers, much as she would if she were performing her clan's Jūken (Gentle Fist). Her indigo hair flew around chaotically as she struck at her own head in apparent insanity, and the veins around her eyes were in plain, exaggerated view as her Byakugan activated for no apparent reason.

Shino, in a very un-Shino-like manner, couldn't help but smirk at her cleverness as he realized what she was trying to do. Even though her façade was that of a somewhat mentally challenged person, it was the only choice she had, since she could not see inside her own head, even with her enhanced vision. The gyrations were mainly due to her hitting chakra nodes that were not the right one, sending jerks through her entire body.

Her movements slowly came to a halt as her chakra-empowered strikes found their mark, shutting off the nodes in and around her ear canal and cutting off any sound from entering her head. With her head temporarily clear, she quickly located Shino and dashed over to offer him the same service. Because the young Hyūga could see into her teammate's head, she was able to quickly locate the relevant chakra points and shut them down. As soon as she did that, Shino indicated to his buzzing pals to cease their vibrations and resume normal activities.

"Thank you," he muttered, receiving a nod in response since Hinata could see his lips through her vision and understand what he was saying, "but I think Kiba and Akamaru are down for the count." The young Aburame jerked his head in the direction of the other members of Team 8, and even though he could not hear a thing, he was certainly able to see Hinata's gasp of horror.

Both Kiba and Akamaru were sprawled out on the ground, obviously no longer conscious. They were completely still, and the only sign of life from either of them was the trickle of blood leaking out of each of their ears. Quickly, the two young trackers leapt to the side of the stricken duo and began inspecting them for life signs. "The sound overloaded their sensitive ears," Shino murmured, his voice holding a slight edge to it.

Hinata nodded, her eyes threatening to bubble over in tears. Shino that her barely visible pupils contracted slightly as they peered into realms that he could only dream of seeing. "All four of their ear drums are ruptured," she mouthed slowly, "They aren't damaged beyond repair, but they need medical attention before the end of the day, or they will have permanent hearing loss."

Shino nodded and made to pick up Kiba in order to move the two incapacitated friends to shelter when his insects alerted him to a number of foreign presences through the energy link he shared with them. Instead, he tugged surreptitiously at Hinata's sleeve, preventing her from picking up Akamaru, and mouthed, "We don't have time to move them. We're not alone."

The Hyūga heir once again caught the speech through her Byakugan, and her eyes narrowed before her head swept around and locked on to a cluster of bushes a few hundred yards away. "Who's there?" she shouted in that general direction, "I know you're there! Show yourself!"

The forest remained calm, and to the two genin completely silent, but Hinata's exclamation eventually coaxed the hidden away squad out of hiding. As the newly revealed team began to march down the slight incline, confidence seeping from every pore of their bodies, both of the Hidden Leaf genin noted a number of things about their probably opponents, knowing that they needed as much ammunition as possible to defeat a full team when they were only at half strength. Shino was the first to note that they were foreign ninja, the single, elongated quarter note on their headbands indicating that they were visitors from the Hidden Sound Village. All three had some variation of the black and grey spotted outfit in a snakeskin-like pattern that Sound ninja were known for.

There were two males and one female in this particular squad. One male was not dissimilar to a mummy, with only a single eye and ear not bandaged on his entire body. He walked almost as if he was a hunchback, though that may have been partially due to the massive straw raincoat on his back. He wore a snake pattern scarf around his neck and a large poncho with sleeves that extended past his arms. Still, as he shuffled towards the two Leaf genin, both were able to see that there was some type of large device attached to his right arm. Hinata was able to see a little more, as her Byakugan showed a massive cloud of chakra emitting from that odd mechanism, and even as it began to peter off, she realized that it was the cause behind the near-debilitating buzz in their ears.

The lone female of the team stood between her squadmates. Standing at full height, she easily matched her non-hunched male teammate. She was dressed rather simply, with a pale green vest that resembled a modified flak jacket and snakeskin patterned pants and a scarf. Her black hair was extremely long, extending nearly to the ground and tied at the end with an indigo ribbon, and she regarded the Leaf team with cool eyes.

The final member of this mysterious team was possibly the scariest one of the three, beating out even the mummified man simply because of the three "death" _kanji_ prominently decorating the front of his beige shirt. The headband holding back his spiky black hair was augmented with two cheek protectors, and as he sauntered forward, his sleeves fell back slightly on his arms, revealing skin tight gloves adorning both hands. Hinata noted with some shock a rather prominent line of chakra running down each of his arms and ending at the palm, but while she had no idea what that indicated, the astute Hyūga stashed that information away for later use.

The trio came to a halt a few yards away, and both Leaf ninja tensed as the bandaged Sound ninja began to shift his arms, but Hinata signaled to Shino that it was okay, as she saw the chakra in the arm augmented by the giant device wink out, along with a corresponding drop in the youth's overall supply. "You can reactivate the chakra nodes in your eardrums now," he murmured in a gravelly voice, "Using this Melody Arm of mine is convenient, but casting a noise over such a large area is somewhat taxing on my chakra, so I'll only use it in controlled bursts from here on."

The remaining members of Team 8 kept their guards up regardless, though Hinata quickly restored hearing to her ears before aiding her teammate, and Shino replied softly, "I know why you're here, but do you really need to attack us?"

"Do we really need a reason to attack you?" the brash one with "death" scrawled over his clothing retorted immediately.

The insect user declined to answer and instead inclined his head towards Hinata, who understood immediately what her teammate wanted to confirm. She shifted her gaze to the clothing of all three Sound ninja and located the scrolls hidden on each of their persons, recoiling in shock as she quickly calculated the total number of scrolls scattered amongst the three. "How many teams have you encountered so far?" she asked slowly.

"Don't worry yourself with that," the bandaged genin growled, "You should be more concerned about how long you'll last in battle down a teammate."

"We've been busy, if you're really that curious," the girl added, spreading her arms wide, and the conscious members of Team 8 realized that the three Sound genin had next to no visible injuries.

The spiky haired male teen stepped forward, waving the other two back to give him some room. He slowly raised his arm and pointed in the general direction of the Leaf genin until the palms were pointing directly ahead. "Let's test your reflexes, shall we?" he said with a wicked grin on his face before shouting, "Zankūha (Decapitating Airwaves)!" With a quick twitch, he subtly shifted his arms a few degrees to the side, and a massive, concussive mixture of air and sound erupted from the palms of his hands, heading straight for the downed Kiba and Akamaru as it ripped apart the floor of the forest around them, sending roots and dirt flying everywhere.

Hinata made the connection with what she had seen earlier with the attack stance and the actual aim of his target a split second before he fired. Knowing there was no time to do anything else, she drew both of her hands to her side and intoned softly, "Hakke Kūshō (Eight Trigrams Air Palm)!" thrusting one palm forward and then the other. A similar blast to the one that the enemy Sound ninja had just fired sped from each of the Hyūga girl's hands. Thankfully, there was enough power behind the air thrusts to cancel out the maliciously aimed bursts, and all that washed over the Inuzuka duo was a messy assortment of sounds.

Meanwhile, Shino's eyes narrowed slightly behind his sunglasses as he observed the attack of the cocky Sound teenager, but his train of thought was disrupted by the sound of something zooming past his head. As he tilted his head to look at what it was, he heard another object fly past him on his blind side, and tired of messing around with things that he couldn't see, he looked to Hinata…only to see her looking around in confusion as if she had just experienced the same problem.

Shaking it off, the Aburame heir refocused his attention on the Sound ninja, inwardly seething at the dishonorable act of attacking a defenseless person. "Hinata…" he muttered with a definite edge in his normally bland tone, catching his teammate's attention. He didn't need to say a word more, as the two immediately charged towards the Sound squad, both coming to the same conclusion that in order to defend Kiba, they needed to keep their opponents occupied. As they neared a distance in which they could engage in hand to hand combat, a swarm of insects flew from the entire forest and formed into another copy of Shino, and that clone immediately engaged with the girl. The real Aburame targeted the spiky haired man, and Hinata veered towards the mummy-wrapped man.

As luck would have it, both Leaf genin were able to get the speed advantage on their respective opponents and prepared attacks. Neither noticed the unusually blasé stances of the two males and continued in a pseudo-haze of anger. Suddenly, as their strikes were only inches away from connecting, their vision blurred to the point of near nausea, and the strikes missed wildly to the side. Hinata and Shino both stumbled past the Sound genin and fell to their knees, having to close their eyes in order to stave off the wave of sickness that came as a result of induced triple vision.

With somewhat jerkier movements and slightly slower than the other two, the clone drew within range of the lone female, who appeared to be deep within concentration. Thankfully, the bug construct wasn't affected by the sound-based attack, or if it was, it didn't outwardly show it. As the fist of the insect conglomerate shot forward, the longhaired beauty's eyes shot open, and she was barely in time to snap her own hand up to deflect the strike. Not coincidentally, the induced nausea also disappeared as if it had never existed. "Zaku!" she shouted desperately, "Blow him up. Now!" She sidestepped another punch, faster than the previous attempt, and jumped sideways towards her deadly teammate.

"Geez, don't have a cow, Kin," he replied in an extremely snarky fashion, though still moving promptly according to her request, essentially swapping Aburame targets with her. The boy named Zaku moved in fast, crouching low with fists clenching in anticipation. He had caught enough of a glimpse of the ways in which the clone moved as it had approached and briefly engaged with his teammate, and the spiky haired youth knew exactly what to do. With precise moves and speedy slaps, he began to assault the insect clone with open hand strikes. Each blow ripped a massive hole in the facsimile of Shino with a force similar to the attack he unleashed earlier and sent bugs flying everywhere, many of which landed on his sleeves. Zaku mostly ignored them as he concentrated on annihilating his opponent. The clone made a valiant effort to fight back, but its reduced speed along with the loss of a limb every couple of times it was struck robbed the insect construct of nearly all of its battle potential. It only took about 10 well placed blows for the clone to finally dissolve into a cloud of bugs, which dispersed into the air. His job done, the dangerous teen took a moment to catch his breath before standing to the side and observing how his teammates were faring.

Shino quickly realized that there was something else going on that Kin did not want him to find out. Her movements were all defensive and not at all offensive; she was constantly bobbing and weaving out of his reach as he attempted to connect with any punch or kick, leading him on a chaotic dance around the natural basin that had become their battleground.

He quickly became acutely aware of the fact that her job was not that of an offensive player. The few times she made an attempt to fight back, her strikes were weak and desperate, mainly made in order to force him to pause momentarily to catch her breath. Still, Shino couldn't deny that she had a true talent for dodging and blocking, and he wasn't getting anywhere at his current rate. He did note with some amount of confusion that whenever she retreated, he was briefly overcome with a small amount of nausea similar to the feeling that he had felt when the Sound squad had first shown up on the scene, but the feeling quickly dissipated whenever he reengaged his opponent in combat.

After five minutes of their awkward waltz, he abruptly switched tactics. Feigning another right cross, he intentionally slowed the approach of his fist so that Kin would react in a predicable manner. Sure enough, her arms crossed in front of her face in a fully defensive position, assuming that would be enough to repel him and prepare for the next assault. What she didn't anticipate was the swarm of insects that erupted from his sleeves and slipped through the cracks of her defense. Shino was not surprised to see her retreat in haste, but he was surprised by the fact that she wasn't repulsed so much as afraid…like Kin thought that he would discover something that he wasn't supposed to know.

The Aburame heir retreated as well and took stock of the situation while signaling for his insects to return to him. He was pondering his next move when his inhabitants offered an interesting message to him through the chakra link they shared. He took the moment of respite to take another look around the area; he hadn't a sufficient opportunity before to examine his surroundings, but now, with a brief moment of calm, he was able to identify the culprit behind the nausea attacks. "So…that's how you did it…" he murmured softly to no one in particular.

"What are you talking about?" Kin snapped irritably, "Why aren't you fighting back? Are you scared? Head feel a little woozy, maybe?"

Shino took note of her smug expression, and her words confirmed his suspicions. Without saying a word, he held out his hand once more, and the Sound kunoichi flinched back, expecting another attack. Instead, another cloud of insects emerged from the young man's sleeves. Kin's expression oozed of confusion, and her eyes followed her opponent's hand as it went from a flat palm to pointing downwards. As her gaze moved to where he indicated, she immediately panicked, as there was a visible line of insects extending from near her feet to a location near where Kiba and Akamaru still laid motionless. Shino was barely able to see the senbon sticking out of the ground, with tiny bells attached at the visible end. She made a last ditch attempt to activate her technique by holding up a handseal, but the damage was done, as Shino's insects had completely eaten through the chakra threads connecting her to her unique weaponry.

The now defenseless kunoichi began to wildly grasp at her hip pouch, managing to extract a kunai with her left hand, but the hectic moment cost her. Shino had already moved behind her, grasping her left arm and baring her own kunai at her throat while restraining her right arm tightly behind her back. "Give up," the normally quiet ninja said somewhat loud, in order for both her and the abrasive Zaku to hear, as he was still standing somewhat off to the side, lazily observing both fights. "I will be more than happy to release you and let you leave here with a complete set of scrolls if you leave every other one that you've collected thus far behind, but you had better do it fast."

"Zaku, do something, you idiot!" Kin screeched manically, "Don't just stand there!"

The spiky haired youth with death written all over him didn't make a move for a few moments, and both combatants began to wonder if he had even heard the desperate shout of his teammate. As the seconds trickled by, with no indication from him, Kin appeared to be about to try to catch his attention once more when he shifted his gaze from the other fight currently going on to his captured teammate. Shino was unable to decipher what exactly the foreign ninja was thinking. After a few more moments of silence, Zaku began to chuckle in a low tone, his eyes narrowing as he stared right at Kin before looking to the sky. "Your wish is my command," he uttered ominously, as he began to raise his hands…

…xXx…

Hinata shook her head briefly, the brief bout of nausea quickly dissipating, but she wasn't able to relax, as the large bandaged Sound ninja swooped in fast, his free arm swinging towards her head. Using her sharp reflexes, she was able to drop quickly, and the attack flew over her head harmlessly. Of course, with a speed that didn't match with his appearance, the other arm (the one with the strange device) followed up, aiming to uppercut the young woman unconscious. Realizing she didn't have a good angle to dodge the strike completely, Hinata resorted to catching the blow with both of her hands, loading her palms with chakra to counteract her disadvantage when it came to strength.

"Bad move, girlie," the hulking ninja growled, as he quickly drew his free hand back and formed a handseal before tapping the device. The Hyūga girl sensed the buildup of chakra in his arm through her eyes and did the first thing that came to mind – she built up as much chakra into her own hands as she could muster in the short amount of time that she had and ejected it out towards her opponent. It was by no means a formal technique outside of knowing the basic principles of her clan's style of taijutsu, but it did the trick, as whatever the Sound ninja had been attempting failed. It also had the additional effect of creating some separation between the two combatants. "That's interesting…" the hunchback mused, "That's never happened before." His lone visible eye regarded the matching organs on his opponent, and realization seemed to set in. "It seems I've ended up with the worst possible opponent between the two of you," he murmured, "This should be entertaining."

"Yes, it shall," Hinata replied, though her tone betrayed how confused she was. She really didn't have any clue what she had prevented, and while she assumed that it was a good thing that she had done just that, she couldn't deny that she was a tad bit curious about what her opponent's attack had been.

The bandaged ninja wasted no time, charging in to engage the young Hyūga heir, this time making no attempt to activate the strange device adorning his right arm. His attacks were sharp and precise for someone of his size and odd shape, and Hinata found herself quickly on the defensive. For her, that was not too much of an issue, as her clan's fighting style was predicated on being able to inflict damage even when defending from attacks as long as there was contact, but her adversary was definitely keeping her on her toes. Still, even with the constant pressure, she kept a cool head and applied a steady stream of chakra to her hands as she batted away kicks, punches, thrusts, and lunges, shutting down a respectable number of chakra points in her opponent's body.

After about five minutes of exchanging blows, she retreated backwards a few yard to catch her breath. She estimated that she had nearly crippled the flow of chakra in the threatening right arm, while disrupting enough of the nodes in the mummy's legs to leave him somewhat wobbly on his feet, while his left arm and chest remained mostly unharmed. Still, he had kept up his assault rather well, and Hinata was shaking her arms slightly as she said softly, "You should consider conceding while you still have some movement in your limbs. If I attack you any more, you won't be able to move."

"Let me worry about that and you worry about your own wellbeing," the mummy retorted, "I'm more than capable of keeping up with you, Hyūga."

"Sure you are, Dosu," someone else shouted, and Hinata shifted her all-encompassing vision slightly so that she could see the spiky haired genin named Zaku, standing off to the side, while Shino was engaged in a game of cat and mouse with Kin. "I'll give you about three minutes before you're flat on your face," he added cockily.

The only response that he received was a middle finger, and the Hyūga heiress added with a sigh, "Have it your way," before dashing back into battle. With two chakra loaded hands and the two prominent finger tips of each one bared, she came to an abrupt halt right in front of her somewhat crippled target and adopted a specific stance. Realizing that she only needed to hit a few specific chakra nodes, she altered her position slightly, with her legs spread wide and her arms cradled in a crescent moon stance.

With nary a tell, she began her assault with a cry of "Hakke…Isshō!" as she began to lay into her opponent once more, focusing many of her strikes on the mysterious right arm and his legs to minimize as much danger to her as possible. The first nailed a point in Dosu's right elbow.

"Nishō!" This one struck the right wrist, reflecting her insistence on keeping the device from being an issue.

"Yonshō!" She then moved on to points in his right thigh and left calf.

"Hasshō!" This time, a focused assault on the lower legs, which hadn't been targeted much until that point.

"Jūrokushō!" She returned to a more balanced attack, including some hits to the mostly free left arm.

"Sanjūnishō!" She finished off her attack by targeting anywhere that she had missed.

Dosu stumbled backwards, his body now feeling extremely sluggish, but he flexed his left hand, showing that it was still somewhat usable. Hinata either missed it or chose to ignore it and jumped forward, her hand charged to make this the final blow. "Big mistake, girlie," the hunchback rumbled, "I just proved something in this battle, and it will cost you dearly."

"It won't help!" the Hyūga shot back frantically, her movements now rushed in an effort to stop him, but the Sound genin wasn't to be deterred. Charging his left hand with as much chakra as he could despite the scattered shut off nodes, he slammed into the metallic device just as Hinata reached him, lashing out with her hand. Dosu barely managed to knock it upwards with his left forearm and mostly flailed his right arm in the direction of the Hyūga's head. The imprecise nature of the attack allowed her to easily dodge it by ducking, and she followed up with a swift kick to her opponent's midriff, sending him skidding backwards a few feet.

The Leaf genin relaxed her stance and stared at her Sound counterpart for a moment before she said, "What about now? Do you…" Her speech suddenly cut out, and she grabbed her head, much like she had earlier in the fight. Her vision blurred significantly, and her sense of balance completely vanished. Falling to her knees, the young woman couldn't stop her stomach from releasing its contents all over the ground, and that's all the opportunistic Dosu needed to make his move. With speed that was nearly unnatural given the apparent disability in his limbs, the hunchback swooped in, yanked Hinata up by the hair, and restrained her with a kunai held at her throat as she yelped in pain. He then looked at Zaku and nodded once.

The spiky haired Sound genin nodded and began to chuckle as his view shifted to the other member of the team. Dosu's visible eye widened as his teammate muttered, "Your wish is my command," and he watched at both of Zaku's deadly arms rose, with one aimed at Kiba and Akamaru once more and the other aiming directly at Kin and Shino.

"What are you doing?" the mummified ninja shouted in horror, not expecting that particular course of action.

"You moron!" the long-haired woman screeched, "Who are you aiming at?"

The obviously sadistic Sound genin chuckled darkly and snapped, "Who do you think I'm aiming at? Dosu's got one of them restrained, those two," and he briefly pointed at Kiba and Akamaru, "haven't moved once since we showed up, and Kin, you've got the third one right where I want him. _I don't see a problem_." With that, he began to pump a massive amount of chakra into each of his arms.

"Zaku, you don't want to do this," the apparent leader of the Sound squad reiterated slowly, "You're attacking your own teammate. There's no telling what the proctors might do to us if you go through with this."

"I also don't think it's a wise idea to use your arms," Shino surprised everyone by speaking up as well, and all conscious heads turned towards him, "I don't think you realize the danger you're in if you go through with the attack you're preparing."

Zaku pretended to look surprised, but everyone could tell he wasn't fazed at all. "Oh really?" he said in mock shock, "I hope you're not referring to your little bugs because I spent the past few minutes carefully blasting them out of the airways in my arms just so they wouldn't be a problem. So yes, I do believe I know exactly what I'm doing." The lack of a discernable reaction from Shino was indication enough that his assumption was correct.

Kin and Dosu, for different but related reasons, continued to plead with him not to follow through with his plan, but there was no stopping Zaku from his goal now that he had set his mind on it. "Don't worry, sweetheart," he purred to his female teammate, "I'll be sure to let Orochimaru know that you were a valued member of the squad." There was no way for him to see it, but Shino's eyes squinted in curious thought as he took in that remark.

The manic genin's eyes hardened, and he declared boldly, "Now, enough talk! This ends now! Zankūkyokuha (Extreme Decapitating Airwaves)!"

From both of his hands, equally massive bursts of air and sound erupted out towards both of his intended targets, ripping and shredding the forest around them to bits. The two chakra-loaded blasts exploded on impact with the ground, and dust blew everywhere, obscuring the view such that nothing could be seen further than around a couple of yards away. From within the haze, grunts of pain and screams of horror could be heard, and the deathly Sound genin chuckled darkly.

A few moments later, coughing could be heard, and Zaku emerged from the haze, waving his arms around trying to dissipate the dust. "Boy, I don't know my own strength, huh? Dosu, let's get their scrolls and blow this joint!" He paused and chuckled at his own joke, adding ruefully, "Well, I guess I already did that." Noticing the rather still and silent atmosphere, he peered around through the gloom and shouted once more, "Hey, Dosu, what are you waiting for?"

Instead of an answer, his superior hearing locked on to a sound not dissimilar to his own attack, and he barely managed to avoid a burst of chakra by diving to the side and rolling across the ground. A body on the ground halted his evasion suddenly, and as he propped himself up, he was promptly planted back on the ground by a punch to the face. "You are such a bastard!" Kin screamed in pure anger, "What the hell were you thinking?"

"Some peace and quiet was definitely part of my decision," the death genin muttered back, only somewhat happy that the attack didn't end up killing her. "You seen Dosu anywhere?" he asked suddenly, resuming his scanning of the general area.

"You probably killed him by accident, you homicidal maniac," she hissed back. He merely shrugged and dragged himself to his feet. He did offer Kin a hand, but she slapped it away and stood up on her own.

Something through the dimming haze caught Zaku's attention, and he grinned in anticipation. "Well, well, well…looks like we're not done yet," he hissed gleefully.

"What are you mumbling about now?" Kin asked snappishly. Her teammate chose not to respond and instead pointed to where Dosu had previously stood and then to where Kiba and Akamaru had been lying prone. She followed his finger and was shocked to see one large form and three smaller forms instead of the two figures that she had been expecting. She then twirled around and quickly noted that the two downed Leaf teammates were no longer there.

"Don't they teach you not to attack your friends in the Hidden Sound Village?" a female voice rang out from somewhere above Kiba's previous position. Zaku and Kin's eyes shifted up, where they saw a new team that had arrived on the scene.

"You, in the death outfit," Hyūga Neji said sternly, glaring down at Zaku as he supported Shino, who had a somewhat nasty injury on his arm that was leaking some serious blood, "You're a real piece of work, attacking your own teammate and people that couldn't even fight back."

"That is most definitely an unyouthful act!" Rock Lee bellowed at the top of his lungs, seemingly ignoring the fact that he was supporting an unconscious Inuzuka with an arm around his shoulders, "If Guy-sensei was here, he would be most displeased with their actions!"

"Geez, calm down, Lee," Tenten groaned, cradling Akamaru's limp body in her arms, "There's no need to drag more unwanted attention to this party."

"A party indeed," Zaku said, his eyes narrowing as he counted up the number of people standing on the branch in the trees above him, and he murmured, "If that's a whole team, then who's over there…?" His eyes trailed over to where his other teammate had been, and he shouted once more, "Dosu, what the hell do you think you're doing over there?"

"Shut up, you douchebag!" the mummy man's gravelly voice finally reverberated out, and the genin finally stumbled out of the mostly dispersed haze, wheezing and coughing as he came to stand next to his squadmates.

Neji's gaze finally shifted to the remaining three shapes and smirked, as he finally could see who had appeared on the scene. "Naruto, thank you for joining us! Mind telling us where you've been the past few days?" he shouted.

Finally, the smoke cleared, and Naruto could be seen standing atop a toad the size of a large buffalo, with Hinata clutching his arm as she came to realize what (or who) she was standing on. "I'll tell you later," he shouted back, scratching his head in embarrassment and looking rather sheepish, as if something amiss had happened. "It's kind of a long story, so don't worry about it." he added, "Let's get back to the tower first." He turned his head slightly to the Hyūga standing next to him and before she could even react, he had scooped her up by the knees and landed back on the ground before setting her back on her feet. As she thanked him through a stutter and fought the blush on her face that threatened to overtake it, Neji noted with some surprise that the Hokage's son wasn't dressed like normal. He wasn't armed at all, and instead of his normal jumpsuit, he was wearing a black tank top and black shorts with orange stripes.

Naruto took a moment to examine his surroundings, noting the presence of Team Guy aiding Team 8 high in the trees as well as the Sound squad standing before him. "Nice spot, Gamakichi," he complimented the large red toad, armed with a sheathed blade and wearing a pearled necklace, "You picked a great spot, eh?"

The large amphibian gave his companion a thumbs-up. "I was just as surprised as you were, bro, but I'm happy to take the credit for that if you thought I had anything to do with it." The look on the blonde's face was priceless, and Hinata couldn't help but giggle slightly at her crush's expression.

As Naruto began to complain about saying more than he had to and ruining the effect, an outburst from the center of the clearing caught everyone's attention. "I'm getting sick and tired of getting ignored," Zaku erupted suddenly, and both Hyūga could see the near dangerous amounts of chakra that he was pumping into his hands. "Let's see what you think of me after this!" The volatile youth swung both of his hands up, facing in opposites directions again to target both groups, but his craze was brought to a quick halt by an abrupt shot to the gut.

"You need to stop running off at the mouth, you imbecile," Dosu growled, "You're going to get all three of us killed if you're not careful, and besides…" His eye drifted to a spot in the woods over the shoulder of Naruto's group, and both Kin and Zaku followed his gaze, searching for what he had seen for a few moments before catching sight of it as well.

Neji frowned; he caught enough of their conversation to become curious about what could distract the lunatic from his attack, and his enhanced sight immediately pierced through the forest canopy, looking for what they had been talking about. Unfortunately, it was extremely obvious what they had been referring to, and the figure was stealthily making his way behind Hinata and her newly arrived savior. Furthermore, he recognized the chakra signature as the person that had been fighting the squad consisting of the Kazekage's children. "Oh hell," he muttered, and his teammates turned to him with questioning looks. "Remember that lone odd ninja that had been fighting the Hidden Sand squad?" he asked, and both Lee and Tenten nodded, recalling how shaken Neji had been. "He's here, so get ready," he added grimly.

"Wait, he's here?" the bun-haired girl asked faintly, recalling the level of discomfort that her teammate had felt when he first saw that particular person through his eyes. "Are you sure we should fight someone like that?"

"I am ready to go, Neji!" the bowlcut ninja said exuberantly, "Let me have a go at this mysterious challenger!"

"No, none of us need to engage that snake if possible, but we may not have a choice in the matter," the stern ninja growled in disgust.

"…Orochimaru…" Shino said faintly, the name floating to the forefront of his mind after remembering a piece of information that had been dropped in the previous fight with the Sound ninja and matching it with what the Hyūga had just said.

That definitely raised flags in everyone's mind, and Neji quickly asked, "What did you say?"

"Orochimaru…" the Aburame ninja said softly, slightly wincing through his pain, "They mentioned something that led me to believe that they are working with Orochimaru…"

That final clue snapped into place within Neji's mind along with everything else that he had seen and hear, and he knew that there was no room for error or hesitation. "Naruto!" he bellowed, catching everyone's attention. "Get Lady Hinata out of there! Now!" Even as he said, he somewhat roughly freed himself from Shino and took off in the direction of his cousin.

Unfortunately, his eyes relayed back to him that his warning was going to be too late. The Hokage's son squinted in confusion, not understanding the problem until Kurama's senses kicked in, and his nose caught a foreign scent dangerously close. He whirled around, instinctively shoving Hinata to the side to save her from the incoming attack, but that was all he was able to do before a foot collided with his cheek, sending him flying through the air towards the Sound genin squad. Before he could even react to the first attack, a supersonic blast from one of Zaku's palms nailed him as well, and his body was sent careening into the trees above Hinata, splintering a trunk and remaining there, hanging limply by shards of wood.

The culprit behind the cheap shot landed in a crouch near Hinata. Shiore was still extremely injured from her engagement with Gaara, and her right limbs were still a bloody mess, and part of her face was sloughed, almost as if it was a mask. Still, the look of greed on that disfigured head was terrifying, and the younger Hyūga recoiled in disgust as she whirled around in a feeble attempt to defend herself. Despite the obvious injuries, the fake Grass ninja was able to slip past the makeshift guard that Hinata threw up, but the Leaf genin was way too slow. With a creepy sneer, Shiore chopped her across the back of the neck, and the girl dropped like a sack of potatoes. It was extremely easy for the strange ninja to scoop up her body, and within a few seconds, the kidnapper disappeared into the woods.

Neji was nowhere near fast enough to cross the clearing in time to prevent any of that from happening, so he chose the next alternative. Peripherally taking note that the Sound squad had taken the opportunity to make a quick escape in the chaos, he landed at the base of the tree that Naruto had ended up at and ran up it until he reached the impact point. Wasting no time, he slapped the blonde across the face a few times until the jinchūriki came up spluttering and woozy. "Did anyone manage to catch the number of that train…?" he muttered groggily.

"There's no time for that, you goofball," Neji gritted out, "Orochimaru has Lady Hinata, so are you going to help me or not?" That got the prankster's attention for sure.

"Yeah, yeah, okay…um…" Naruto began to look around for an answer that wasn't asking the prideful Hyūga to ride on his back and quickly found one, given Sakura's negative reaction a few days prior. "Oi, Gamakichi, think you can keep up with me?" he asked, and he was rewarded with a scoff.

"Of course!" the young toad replied cockily, "Lead the way!" The blonde nodded and turned in the direction that his new partner indicated. As Neji let himself fall through the branches towards his amphibian steed, he didn't miss the fact that Naruto immediately let himself be surrounded by three tails worth of the Nine Tails' chakra and shot off into the gloom, not wasting a single second of time.

…xXx…

Hinata slowly came back into consciousness and was immediately assaulted by the nauseating combination of the feeling of flight as well as moving at high speed. Quickly remembering what had happened, she forced down the rising waves of fear within her and made herself not react in any outward manner. Judging by the surroundings, they were still in the Forest of Death, so she hadn't been out for very long, and there was a decent chance that someone would come to her aid. Still, she was well aware of the fact that she needed to do something before Orochimaru (which she was shocked about and had no idea what he wanted with her of all people) reached his destination.

An idea did come to mind, and even though it wasn't a perfect plan, it was all she had. While she wasn't quite yet a master of the advanced ninjutsu defensive technique of the Hyūga clan, she had enough practice and experience that she was relatively confident in her ability to free herself. Knowing that she only had a small window, the heiress summoned her chakra as fast as possible and expelled it from all of her chakra nodes in a vaguely spherical shape. While it didn't have the punch that a Hakkeshō Kaiten (Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven) normally had, it did the job that she had intended, releasing her from the hold of her captor.

Shiore landed on a branch a few yards ahead, while Hinata fell to another limb that was slightly higher up. "Impressive, girl," she, or rather he judging by the masculine voice, said, "I wasn't expecting you to wake up that fast or be able to counterattack." When he received no response, he just shrugged and added, "It's all irrelevant in the long run. You can't and won't escape from me. That's an indisputable fact."

"I don't understand," the young woman said desperately, "What in the world could you possibly want with me?"

"Don't you worry," the elder ninja purred, "I'm not here to kill you or take you from the village at this time."

"Then what?" Hinata cried out, wanting a straight answer.

"You'll know soon enough," was the answer she received before the odd person suddenly grew still. The Hyūga girl looked somewhat confused and most definitely distressed by this, seeing as the odd person was just trying to kidnap her.

She soon figured out why. With no warning, two arms burst out of the mouth of the wounded Grass genin, and Hinata recoiled in complete horror. The two limbs began to spread the edges of the genin's mouth open, and a head soon emerged, followed by a torso as the skin began to slide away much like the shedding of a snake. Before long, a new, completely healthy body emerged and kicked away the remnants of its old self, allowing the shell to fall to the forest floor. The healed person now standing before the terrified Leaf genin was a fully-grown man, with decidedly more serpentine features added to the appearance that he had adopted as Shiore. His skin was nearly white, his eyes yellow with slit irises, and the purple markings surrounding them gave the tall male an imposing feel. The person's clothing remained mostly unchanged from the previous façade, though there was a notable lack of an identifying headband on the newly healed person's forehead.

Hinata was so horrified by the spectacle that she had just seen that shouts from behind her startled her back into reality. Activating her Byakugan, she was able to see two forms approaching her at their respective top speeds: a Kurama-empowered Naruto and Neji riding on the back of the toad that had appeared with her crush earlier. Her heart soared when she saw this, but it caused her to miss what was happening with Orochimaru.

The Leaf rogue formed a single handseal, and Hinata screamed in horror as she was suddenly wrapped and constrained in the skin that had just been shed. In her excitement at her crush and cousin coming to get her, she had missed the fact that there was an abnormal amount of chakra still remaining in the dead tissue. Orochimaru had used the shedding substitution technique both to heal and to prepare a quick method of restraining the young Hyūga. The criminal then changed seals, and the young woman was terrified as the snake's neck elongated to an absurd length. Without warning or time to counteract, his head shot right for her at extremely high speed.

There was an angry shout, the sound of crunching teeth, a grunt of pain, and then there was silence.

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! Obviously this isn't a flashback; I think those would be better served for after every arc instead of every 5 chapters.

Also, to cut off whining later…in this story, techniques that are not strictly Jūken taijutsu (meaning direct contact strikes) will be considered to be ninjutsu in the minds of the general public of the Hidden Leaf Village, even though the Hyūga clan still considers them to be taijutsu in accordance with clan guidelines.

**Review Responses:**

**Revisions: **I don't have a problem clarifying this since I haven't until now. That's what I'm assuming. They're starting at a young age (around 5-7) and going through when you see here.

**Shinobi of life: **Stay tuned.


	15. (Chūnin Exams 7) Chapter 14

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Team 8, while taking a quick breather, was assaulted by some manner of sound-based attack, knocking Kiba and Akamaru out of the fight and hindering the other two until Hinata came up with a temporary cure. The source of the assault was revealed to be a team of Hidden Sound genin, and they were not above attacking down opponents or resorting to underhanded tactics. During their counterattack, Shino was able to restrain the female Kin, while the psychotic Zaku dispatched one of his insectoid clones. Hinata briefly got the upper hand on the sly Dosu, but her lack of a complete understanding of her opponent's abilities led to her being restrained. Zaku continued to show his true colors as he once more attacked the Inuzuka duo as well as Kin and Shino. After the resulting explosion, Team Guy was revealed to have saved Shino, Kiba, and Akamaru, and the timely appearance of Naruto and Gamakichi freed Hinata from Dosu's grasp. Unfortunately, Shiore/Orochimaru made his presence known, knocking out Naruto and kidnapping Hinata before anyone could react. After Neji woke up the jinchūriki, the two of them along with the toad summon gave chase. The Hyūga heiress managed to break Orochimaru's hold on her, but using a shed shin, the Leaf rogue managed to hold her long enough to begin an assault…

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 14 – The Second Stage Ends! Onto the Finals!**

_**Elsewhere in the Forest of Death, within a few hundred yards of the central tower**_

A figure fell to the ground, and it was unclear whether he was dead or just unconscious. Still, it didn't matter either way, as he had been the last member of his team still fighting. A few feet away, his other two teammates lay prone, with similar injuries to their stricken teammate. All three shared the same pasty yellow jumpsuit, with stitching straight up the middle of the front, as well as headbands signifying their allegiance to the Hidden Rain Village. Cloth strips concealed various parts of their faces, and a rebreather covered each of their mouths.

Standing off to the side, with the top of the tower barely visible in the trees behind them, a Hidden Grass squad observed their previous opponents. "That was pathetically easy," one of them spat in disgust. He was the tallest of the three by far but had rather plain characteristics outside of that, not standing out for any particular reason. His hair was a shade of faded gray-green and was buzzed close, and his black eyes were narrow but sharp as they scanned the area. Over his top, he wore a black vest (which his Hidden Grass headband was stitched into) and he had khaki colored pants to cover his legs. Slung over his shoulder was some manner of weapon, though the wrappings prevented anyone from knowing what it was. "Yo, Chigaya, find their scrolls," he ordered his other male teammate, ruffling the baggy sleeves of his tan colored shirt as he waved in dismissal.

"Can it, Ashiboso," was the prompt reply, "What do you think I've been doing?" This young man was the complete opposite in terms of height, only reaching the elbows of his rather tall companion. He had chin length brown hair, large green eyes, and a cross-shaped scar on his forehead. His headband was wrapped around his left biceps. His outfit was much the same, except his shirt was short-sleeved, and he had no special weapon.

As the stumpy Grass ninja began to rifle through the pockets of the Hidden Rain ninja, the one that they had taken down last came back into consciousness. With discreet movements, he began to form some handseals, and a hazy facsimile began to seep out of the earth. At the same time, the blindfolded ninja melded into the ground, unbeknownst to his enemies.

Chigaya never saw the attack coming. He managed to react to the apparent clone that had snuck up on him, but his retaliatory punch just fazed through the misty copy. As he stumbled through the imitation, the real Rain ninja rose from the ground and coordinated movements with his creation, stabbing the short Grass genin multiple times in the back. Leaving him to fall to the forest floor, the surprise attacker whirled around to attack once more…before he cried out in pain as a shining golden chain burst through his back with a disturbing squelch and wrapped around his body multiple times. As the length of the chain stopped increasing, it began to bind tightly, eliciting a few more squeals of discomfort from the apparent blind ninja.

Ashiboso scoffed in disgust, though it was unclear whether it was due to losing a teammate or having to look after him. "Ah crap," he muttered, having also whirled around at Chigaya's shouts, "I was hoping to get through this without losing anyone." He peered off into the woods a few feet away, where a faint glow could be seen. "Karin, we need your help over here!" he shouted dejectedly.

There was a little shuffling, and then the third member of the Hidden Grass team revealed herself. She appeared to be somewhat different in temperament to the other two, moving with almost an indifferent attitude and a sway in her hips. Most notable about her appearance were the matching vivid red color of her eyes and shoulder-length hair. Her headband was on her forehead, and her outfit was similar to her teammates except lacking in a black vest. While in no way shy, meek, or antisocial, it was apparent that her teammates were the dominant personalities, though the edge in her features showed that she wasn't afraid to speak her mind. "Really, fatso?" she muttered in disgust, "How did you not see that coming?"

"Shut up and get over here," Ashiboso snapped, gesturing wildly, "I thought I told you to cut the sass." The redhead only rolled her eyes discreetly in response as she strutted over to her associates.

"What were you doing over there?" Chigaya hissed through his pain, "Painting your fingernails?"

Karin scoffed as she knelt down and rolled her sleeves up, though her expression didn't show much in the way of feeling insulted. As she examined her arms, she presented her forearms to her stricken teammate, as they were mostly unmarked. "I did that this morning, for your information," she said matter-of-factly, "Now here, bite my arm." Obviously suppressing yet another insult, the short Grass ninja weakly chomped down on the redhead's arm, and she couldn't help but shiver as her unique chakra flowed out of her and into the injured young man. Before their eyes, the wounds from the Rain ninja's kunai slowly stopped leaking blood and healed over until the only indication that anything untoward had happened were the rips in his clothing.

"Oh hell," Karin muttered in disgust as Chigaya's mouth released her arm, and it was obvious that the previously injured Grass ninja felt that something was wrong as well.

"Now what?" Ashiboso asked impatiently, his narrow eyes thinning further as they darted back and forth between his teammates.

Karin lifted herself to her feet, and the tallest member of the Grass team noticed that his short counterpart had not done the same. "His wounds are healed, as far as the knife wounds are concerned, but…" she appeared to struggle to find the right words to describe the issue, "…I think that Rain ninja caused some serious nerve damage. I think Chigaya will be able to walk, but he'll need help to get to the tower and likely additional treatment to even have a hope of regaining full mobility."

This was obviously not good news, but seeing as they didn't have much of a choice, the taller Grass ninja sighed resignedly and replied, "Fine, fine, whatever. We're good anyways when it comes to scrolls, so all we need to do is get to the tower." He trudged over and roughly lifted his ailing teammate up by his arm, ignoring the squeals of pain and objections that were coming from Chigaya. "Let's go," was the last thing he threw over his shoulder before he took to the trees for the short travel to the tower. Karin shook her head in disgust and followed at a more leisurely rate, wondering how she got stuck with such incompetent teammates.

…xXx…

Naruto's eyes appeared to be stuck open as they widened slowly in pure horror and shock. While within eyeshot of the action, he was still a few seconds out from being able to do anything about it, even if he pushed his chakra output even more than he already was. Realizing that he couldn't do anything about the scene before him in the trees, he instead focused on a more doable goal in the falling form underneath the end of Orochimaru's elongated neck. "Gamakichi!" he roared, but the request was almost not even needed, as the young toad was already making a move to catch the figure. Under the action, he leapt forward and snatched Hinata out of the air, protecting her from falling into the ground.

The bijū-powered jinchūriki landed on all fours a moment later, and using his chakra claws, he ripped away the remainders of the Snake Sannin's previous skin, with only a sliver of disgust. The Hyūga heiress's eyes were trembling slightly, but her release from the slimy restraints snapped her out of it. She locked on to her crush and was slightly taken aback by his chakra mode, but managed to dispel it long enough to point upward and reassure the blonde. "I'm fine," she blurted out before Naruto could even ask if she was fine, "Go help my brother!" There wasn't a single stutter in her voice.

The red eyes of the Hokage's son lingered for a moment on the girl before him before shifting upwards, again catching sight of what was truly vital at the moment. With that, he began to make his way skyward by bouncing off of the tree trunks, his progress slightly hindered by the sheer volume of foliage in his way.

Orochimaru caught sight of the telltale flash of orange chakra through the leaves, and he realized that he needed to wrap things up in a hurry. Even though the young man before him had interfered with his plans significantly, it may have been a blessing in disguise, if the intel that he had received was any indication. Branch family be damned, Hyūga Neji was possibly the most talented Hyūga to be born in a long time, and even the possibility of utilizing that potential was enough to override Orochimaru's ire at his initial plan being foiled.

Despite the sudden distance between his head and body, the reaction time was still on point. His hands quickly shifted seals, and the rogue's jaws clamped down harder on Neji's neck, eliciting further cries of pain from the prodigy as another wave of foreign chakra flowed into the young man's body. The serpentine man's eyes then shifted down, to where he could see the form of a circular seal beginning to coalesce on the boy's shoulder.

His job done, he removed his mouth from his victim's neck, and almost simultaneously the seal began to glow and activate, with the _tomoe_ comprising the design of the foreign chakra mark flaring out in flickering flames across Neji's left shoulder, upper arm, neck, and beginning to slide across his face. Orochimaru's neck returned to a normal length, and a smirk flitted across his face as the additional technique that he had added took effect and activated his cursed seal. "My job here is done, it seems," he murmured, and he made one more handseal quickly.

Mere moments later, a chakra-shrouded hand burst through the rogue's chest, courtesy of a snarling Naruto, but there wasn't so much of a grunt or wince of pain from the victim. Almost as soon as the seemingly fatal injury was inflicted, Orochimaru's body dissolved into hundreds of small snakes that scattered immediately, landing on some branches or falling through the canopy into the forest below. "Dammit!" the blonde genin spat in disgust at not connecting with his swift assault, but there was nothing he could do because his prey was seemingly nowhere to be found, hidden amongst the multitude of serpents that had been released.

Neji's grunts and shouts of pain had not stopped since Orochimaru had disengaged from his neck, and now that the Snake Sannin wasn't restraining him, he grabbed at his shoulder where the mark had appeared. Naruto turned and regarded his fellow genin with no small amount of worry, dispersing his partner's chakra shroud because of the lack of imminent threats. Quickly traversing the branches separating both of them, he landed a few feet away and regarded the Hyūga prodigy carefully, noticing that Hinata had jumped up to stand near him as well. She moved closer to him and gently laid a hand on his shoulder to support herself on the somewhat thin limb. Behind the ailing young man, Lee and Tenten landed, along with the injured members of Team 8, catching the attention of the two already present. "What's wrong with him?" the bun-haired girl asked, her voice betraying the fear that she was feeling.

"He jumped in front of an attack meant for me, and Orochimaru bit him on the shoulder," Hinata explained softly, her features just as stricken as her cousin's teammate as he continued to grunt and wince in pain, "That mark appeared when he did that."

"Should we do something?" Lee asked, his wide eyes open even further than normal before correcting himself by adding, "Or should I say, can we do anything to help?"

"Have any of you ever seen something like this before?" Naruto posed skeptically, though he suspected that he already knew the answer. Sure enough, he received a number of shrugs or shakes of the head.

No one immediately spoke up after that, mostly because no one had a good thought about how to approach the situation, until Shino spoke up. "It might be too late," he murmured, pointing his finger to the older genin, "Look."

Everyone turned their heads and gazed at Neji as a particularly violent scream erupted from his mouth. Naruto and Hinata both noticed the progression of the pattern of the seal had progressed across his face further. As the stricken youth grabbed at his head in obvious pain, his chaotic movements accidentally dislodged his headband, revealing the accursed mark of the Hyūga main family cursed seal. Orochimaru's foreign chakra continued to flare across his face and down his neck before rising up towards his forehead, curiously avoiding any immediate contact with its counterpart. Instead, it flared around it as the flame pattern continued its ravaging scourge across Neji's face.

With no warning, coupled with an agonizing scream, the recently applied seal made contact with the one applied earlier in his life, and the floodgates opened. The Hyūga prodigy's screams reached painful levels for the ears of his friends and family around him. As Orochimaru's chakra began to seep in to Neji's forehead seal, the latter began to glow brightly as it activated for no apparent reason. Need to know what was going on so she might be able to help her cousin out, Hinata activated her Byakugan and gasped at what she saw, catching everyone's attention. "What is it, Hinata?" Shino asked quickly.

She squinted as she tried to make sense of what her eyes were telling her before replying, "I-I'm not sure. As you may know, the only way that the Caged Bird Seal can ever be used is when someone from the main family activates it, or when the branch family member dies." Everyone present nodded tensely, knowing much too well about that somewhat shameful aspect of the Hidden Leaf Village as well as the efforts that attempts and efforts internally to do something about this problem. "Well…" and she paused, trying to find the right way to word it to her friends, "the two are mixing together, which is somewhat strange considering that the Caged Bird Seal is an even numbered seal, and the foreign one is an odd numbered seal."

"Wait a moment," Tenten interjected, being a well-versed student of the sealing arts, "Odd and even numbered seals are never supposed to work when applied on top of each other. Even two of the same types of seals never mingle perfectly due to minute, unavoidable differences in the application and crafting of any given formula."

Hinata nodded, as well as Naruto due to being well versed in the unique Uzumaki sealing methods. "You're right," the heiress said, nodding slowly, "but the foreign mark is…almost parasitic if anything, which is likely why the Caged Bird seal activated. Orochimaru's chakra must have some aspect of death or necromancy to it, which makes sense with the behavior and interaction of the two. It's overpowering and…taking over Neji's preexisting seal." She pointed at her cousin, and everyone turned to observe the stricken youth. The Hyūga family seal was now glowing a vivid sea foam green color that was slowly being leached away by the Snake Sannin's chakra.

"Hold on," Naruto said slowly as he noticed it first, and Shino's nearly imperceptible lean forward indicated that he had as well. "That thing that Orochimaru put on him…it's not only taking it over… it's destroying his forehead seal too…right?"

He looked around, looking for confirmation and finding it in a bemused Tenten. "That's what it looks like…though it appears to be less destruction and more absorption…" the weapons master murmured softly, tapping her lips with her index finger in contemplation. "And he appears to be in much less pain too," she added, her expression lightening slightly as she noted that. Indeed, Neji's grunts of pain began to taper away, and his body began to relax such that he was able to grab at his head with his free hand. As he did that, Orochimaru's curse fully latched on to the other mark and sucked it completely back into the original mark on his shoulder.

Whether on purpose or through sheer willpower through the pain he had been afflicted with, the seal that had been applied to Neji had completely retreated to its origins, and it had taken his other seal with it. As the flames dispersed from his skin, so did his pain, and with his discomfort mostly gone, his legs gave out on him. His eyes fluttered shut, and none of the genin gathered there reacted in time to catch as he flopped off of the tree branch. Luckily, Gamakichi was still close by, and without even a request, the young toad leapt off the ground and caught the stricken Hyūga.

The rest of the Leaf genin descended from the branches and landed near the amphibian. "Good job Gamakichi," Naruto complimented his animal partner wearily, "I think I can speak for all of us when I say that I'm pretty pooped."

"Not a problem, bro," he replied, giving everyone a grin, "I haven't had this much fun since Gamatatsu stole Pop's pipe a few months back." The blonde grinned back with a thumbs-up and leaned back on his friend's side, unnaturally worn out due to his earlier intense workout. Hinata collapsed in a heap on the ground nearby with her shoulders drooped, and Tenten shrugged in a noncommittal manner. Shino remained mostly motionless, though it wasn't clear if it was due to his stoic nature or in fear of aggravating his arm.

Lee, however, was a different story. "Not for me, my friend!" he exclaimed loudly, startling the bun-haired kunoichi standing close by, "I am still full of energy! I could probably run a few hundred laps around this forest for some light exercise before the end of the exam!"

"Yeah…for the sake of finishing the exam on time and getting Neji to a doctor, let's not do that," Tenten muttered exasperatedly. "You'll have plenty of time to do that after the round's over."

If anything, Lee looked energized at his teammate's rebuttal, and his eyes gained a spark as he clenched his fist and shouted, "Great idea! Once this stage is done, I will run five hundred laps around this training area on one arm with fifty kilogram weights on each limb!"

"Oi, oi, Bushy Brows," Naruto quickly interrupted the spandex-wearer before he got truly fired up, "Let's talk about that after we get to the tower. Tenten's right, that should be our priority." Frankly though, he was more just trying to get Lee to stop bellowing.

The bowlcut ninja indeed stopped his yammering and gave the blonde a thumbs-up. "Yes, you are right!" he said in a slightly more subdued tone. "Let us make our way to the center of the forest! I cannot wait to see Guy-sensei and tell him about our success! Because he is not in any shape to walk, I will carry Neji on my back to speed up our travel!" With that, he trotted over to Gamakichi, who carefully slung the unconscious Hyūga onto his back.

"I hope he enjoys that while he can," Tenten muttered in disgust, "There's no way that he would ever let Lee do that if he was conscious." That elicited a snort from Naruto.

Hinata looked quickly at her teammate's arm before asking, "Do you need someone to help you, Shino?" After a few experimental flexes and stretches, he shook his head in the negative.

"I can carry the puppy," Tenten offered, "and Naruto's toad friend can get Kiba." Everyone else nodded, and after Gamakichi had carefully picked up the unconscious Inuzuka genin, the strange assortment of teams took to the trees to complete the short journey to the center of the Forest of Death.

"Naruto!" Lee said suddenly a few minutes in, looking somewhat confused, "I have a question for you!"

Being in the lead, the toad summoner had to swivel his head slightly so he could address the question. "What's up?" he asked, wondering what in the world the bowlcut ninja could want.

"Neji mentioned that you and your teammates were the first team to the tower, is that not right?" he posed tentatively.

The blonde nodded, recalling the chaos in the first hour a few days earlier. "Yeah, we had to make tracks because Sasuke caught the flu from somewhere, so I swiped a scroll from some Grass ninja…" he trailed off, making an interesting connection. "Actually, I think it was Orochimaru who I stole it from…but whatever, I got a complete set, and we got Mr. Barfy Pants to the tower and a bed so he could get better."

"But that doesn't explain why you showed up back in the forest," Tenten pointed out skeptically. Hinata didn't say anything but she also was curious how her crush ended up saving her earlier.

The blonde began to scratch his head in embarrassment and almost ran into a tree trunk because of it. "Yeah, about that…" he chuckled nervously, "I sorta got cabin fever waiting for everyone else to show up, and I wanted to do some training in the meantime. So I tried summoning Gamakichi so he and I could do some stuff in the indoor arena there, but I accidentally did it in the hallway where it was too narrow, so the contract was cancelled and I got reverse summoned to Mount Myōboku instead."

"And you've been there the whole time training?" Lee asked, his eyes wide in wonder and surprise.

"Yeah, and I guess it was just luck that I appeared near you guys," the jinchūriki replied, shrugging to indicate that he didn't really care how he got there but that he did get there.

"I don't have an issue with it at all," Shino added softly, "Why? In addition to Guy-sensei's team, you showing up likely saved our lives. That Sound squad was too much for us without Kiba and Akamaru."

The lone conscious Hyūga nodded as well and surprised everyone by speaking up to follow up with her teammate. "Naruto…thank you so much for saving me earlier," she said, her cheeks lightly flushed as she make a concerted effort to suppress her stutter.

The blonde waved it off, though his expression was somewhat odd and flushed. "Nah…" he said offhandedly, "…it was nothing…really…" Hinata's eyes widened imperceptibly before a soft smile graced her face.

Soon enough, the door to the tower came into view, and thanks to the Byakugan, the throw-together team avoided any further conflict. As they landed outside and entered the main lobby, Gamakichi set Kiba down nearby and with a wave of goodbye reversed his summoning. "Well, I'd better go explain to my team where I've been for the past three days," Naruto said, sighing as he thought about how angry they likely were going to be, "See you guys tomorrow!" With that, he took off for the stairs as Team Guy and Team 8 began to pull out and present their scrolls for confirmation.

_**Later that night, in one of the medical rooms of the tower at the center of the Forest of Death**_

Neji sat in the middle of an array of various scrolls, seals, and formulas, impatiently tapping his index finger on his crossed arms. In nothing but his boxer shorts, his forehead was conspicuously uncovered, and the seal on his shoulder lay dormant. Outside the array stood both Kages present in the Hidden Leaf Village, as well as Hiashi and Might Guy, while three chūnin medics kept the seal running the tests active. The Hokage and Kazekage were muttering tersely with Hiashi, while the leader of Team 9 awkwardly stood off to the side, his eyes darting from the high-ranking huddle to his student. The doctors were mostly unmoving outside of occasional glances to each other or taking a moment to write something in their notes.

Finally getting somewhat annoyed with the whole ritual, having sat there for almost thirty minutes without any obvious progress, Neji piped up and said with an edge, "Uncle, I don't mean to be rude, but is this going to be done sometime soon?"

The leader of the Hyūga broke off from the conversation, and he as well as the two Kage turned to face the array. Hiashi exchanged glances with one of the medics, who nodded and stood up, effectively deactivating the formula. "Please tell us some good news, doctor," the elder clan leader asked hopefully.

The lead medic walked over and nodded in the affirmative, saying, "There is no mental contamination, the seal isn't affecting him adversely in any way, and as long as he doesn't use it, there shouldn't be any change in his everyday life."

Both Hyūga sighed in relief discreetly, and the older of the two added, "That's a relief."

"What about the Caged Bird Seal?" Minato asked tersely, "Why did it disappear?"

The doctor looked back at Neji, and his face screwed up in thoughtful consideration. "Well, that's an interesting question," he started, "When I probed the location on his forehead where that seal had previously been, I could find no trace of your chakra, Lord Hyūga. It's as if it never existed. But, when I examined Orochimaru's seal, I did find minute amounts of your chakra there, which was quite the conundrum."

Everyone in the room looked confused at this, and Hiashi probed further, "What does that mean?"

"It's hard to say," was the doctor's quick reply, "but my best guess would be that the recent invasive chakra was more virulent than anyone could have suspected. As it began to spread across his body when it first activated and contacted the Caged Bird Seal, it latched on and sucked away all of the chakra of the mark like a parasite, and the unexpected extra chakra forced a withdrawal. As a result, the Hyūga curse mark was mostly annihilated and absorbed into Orochimaru's mark."

Hiashi nodded thoughfully as he processed all of the information, and Rasa chose to speak up as one of the doctor's statements had caught his attention. "Doctor…" he started, startling everybody except his fellow Kage, "…you said that the Caged Bird Seal was mostly destroyed. Does that mean that elements of it still linger in this young man's body?" He waved his hand in Neji's general direction, as he was currently getting changed back into his clothes in the corner.

"Excellent observation, Lord Kazekage," the lead doctor replied, "You are one hundred percent correct, and we did some diagnostic tests that confirmed some of our guesses, as well as revealed some other information. When our experts on chakra movement and seals…" and he indicated the third Hyūga in the room as well as someone that looked like a cross between an Uchiha and Yamanaka, and both waved briefly, "…they came to the conclusion that inducing Orochimaru's seal into activating even briefly causes the remnants of the Caged Bird Seal to activate and inflict a massive amount of pain on the subject. The only caveat is that Lord Hyūga, or any member of the main family for that matter, no longer has any control over when it activates."

"That's…unexpected…" Minato said, sharing a glance with his good friend as he said that, "…but it might work in Neji's favor. If there's still enough of it there, he cannot be branded again, and if we seal away Orochimaru's part, then the foreign chakra won't have a chance to influence your nephew."

Hiashi's expression was unreadable as he tilted his head slightly to address his brother's son, who had walked over to stand at his side. "I think the biggest question here lies with you, Neji. What do you think about all of this?"

The younger Hyūga flexed his afflicted shoulder slightly before replying, "I certainly never asked for this; all I was trying to do was protect Lady Hinata from Orochimaru's nefarious plans. I won't deny that I am glad that the Caged Bird Seal is gone from my life, but I did not want it to be as a result of something like this." He looked to his uncle, briefly exchanging glances. "Additionally, from what you've indicated to me, this…_thing_…could influence my thoughts and actions if I let it get too active, and there's no way that I would use illegal or untoward aid to accelerate my own development." He looked everyone in the room in the eye once and sighed in resignation. "This might be a curse, but having remnants of the Hyūga main family curse seal incorporated into it is a blessing as well. There is hope for finding ways of destroying the Caged Bird Seal for good, and I am proud to be the one to help start that research."

Both Kages and the medics nodded appreciatively, and Hiashi clapped his nephew on his good shoulder. "I hope you know how proud your father and I are of you," he said softly, "The youth like you and Hinata make fighters of the old guard like me hopeful for the future."

It was apparent that the young Hyūga hadn't lost his sense of wit, as he quickly retorted, "Watch it, Uncle. You're starting to sound like Guy-sensei." That elicited a chuckle from everyone in the room.

Minato walked over and offered his hand to Neji, saying, "I'm truly sorry that I was unable to prevent his, but I will do everything possible to rectify it. Are you willing to have this mark sealed away?"

There was no need to even consider other options, and the prompt response was, "I am ready when you are."

"Excellent." The Hokage pulled out his cell phone and opened the calendar application to check a number of things. "Hiashi, I think it's appropriate to call an emergency council meeting to discuss these recent events, so if you could contact every relevant member, we'll meet in the conference room in the basement of this tower tomorrow evening." He glanced sideways at the other village leader in the room. "Lord Kazekage, as this may affect you as well, seeing as how your children engaged with Orochimaru, you are more than welcome to join us." Rasa inclined his head in acceptance, and Minato turned back to Neji. "I know you probably want to get back to your team and relax a little, but after our meeting, would you be fine with performing the sealing then.?"

"That works fine for me, Lord Hokage," the young man replied immediately, and Minato nodded appreciatively at his resolution.

_**The evening of the next day, Forest of Death tower large meeting room**_

All of the teams that had collected at least one complete pair of scrolls were now gathered together to receive instructions now that they had finished the second stage of the Chūnin Exams. Nine teams had passed the exams, with a total of twenty-four participants. Seven squads had retained every member through all five days, but the Hidden Grass team was down a member who would likely need months of rehabilitation to even have a chance at continuing his ninja career, and Kabuto was the only member of his team present.

As for those who had been injured, Kiba and Akamaru had been healed, but their ears were still a little sensitive and blocked, so they couldn't hear very well, and everything that the Inuzuka youth said was much louder than usual. A medic easily healed Shino's arm, but it was still somewhat stiff, and if someone with advanced vision like a Hyūga or Uchiha had viewed his movements, they could tell that he was doing an extremely good job of concealing the minor discomfort that he was feeling.

Hisen was still bruised and sore from Chōji and Ino's assault earlier, but he was in good spirits, engaged in friendly banter with his brother and sister. Currently, they were laughing uproariously about some joke concerning a beetle, a badger, and a fox. The son of the Kazekage was much the same; though the One Tailed Tanuki aided his injuries, he still rubbed at his stomach every now and then surreptitiously. The Grass ninja Chigaya wasn't present due to his spinal injury, and while Kabuto's teammates were nowhere to be found, the gray-haired genin was conspicuously unharmed.

Every team was standing on the floor currently, with their jōnin sensei standing nearby. The Hidden Leaf teams were in a large huddle, chatting in small groups. Naruto, Shikamaru, Chōji, Lee, and Kiba were conversing about a number of things, occasionally breaking out into laughter. The Akimichi was munching on some BBQ-flavored chips, while the canine-user shouted at various points during the discussion, earning him the ire of the blonde son of the Hokage. The Leaf kunoichi were engaged in a raucous round of swapping gossip, and every few seconds one of them squealed in happiness. Finally, Sasuke, Neji, and Shino were talking quietly, with the dōjutsu users exchanging barbs directed at each other every now and then. Kabuto remained by himself, leaning against the wall of the arena with his eyes closed.

The Sand and Grass squads were nearby each other but not mingling. The older children of the Kazekage were chatting pleasantly, and Gaara remained mostly quiet outside of answering a question if one was directed at him. He did occasionally shoot a curious glance towards the Waterfall team whenever Fū said something a little louder than normal. The two remaining Grass shinobi were much like Kabuto, choosing to keep to themselves, and no one was anywhere near the Sound squad, having heard the rumors about the extent of their cruelty and sadistic nature.

The team leaders for the Hidden Leaf Village were also chatting with each other. Kakashi and Guy were engaged in some manner of rock-paper-scissors contest, which the latter appeared to be either losing or creating a complete mockery of the game, while the former was just plain uninterested. Kabuto's sensei was watching this with a disgusted look on his face, and he was the only one who didn't say a thing the whole time. The leaders of Teams 8 and 10 were also conversing while occasionally commenting on the craziness occurring nearby. Uchiha Shisui was few inches shorter than the elder jōnin who were acting like children, with messy black hair over his forehead protector. His eyelashes were well defined for a man, and his nose was somewhat broad. He retained the high collared shirt that his clan favored, and he wore a standard Leaf flak jacket over top of it. A tantō was holstered over his right shoulder, and an eye patch covered his right eye. He was chatting with Sarutobi Keisei, pointing out the stupidity of Kakashi and Guy's "rivalry." The other leader was of a similar height, and his outfit was basically a stock version of the Hidden Leaf jōnin uniform. As for his features, he had spiky brown hair, black eyes, and a neatly trimmed goatee. His headband was also on his forehead, and a scroll was attached to a latch on his hip pouch.

The two Kage were standing before them, and Minato cleared his throat to get their attention. On the left and slightly behind were Anko and Ibiki as the proctors of the first two segments, and the sickly Gekkō Hayate and the laidback Shiranui Genma were in the same position on the right as the proctors for the third part of the exam. If one were to look up at the elevated viewing areas of the area, they would have been able to see a number of clan leaders as well as the village elders, gathered there for the meeting later that night.

All of the genin ceased with their conversations and lined up to listen to the Hokage. "Congratulations to all of you for passing the second stage of the Chūnin Exams!" he said with a smile on his face, "You all have made it extremely far, in face of some serious opposition, and I think I speak for the leaders of all of our villages when I say that I am extremely proud of each and every one of you." He started a brief round of applause that was picked up by about half of the participants, most of them from the Hidden Leaf Village. As that died down, a portion of the wall behind him opened up, revealing a large video screen, and Minato continued his explanation of the upcoming segment, "When the matches begin, this computer will randomly generate the two competitors. Normally, we would begin today, but I can imagine that many of you are still very tired and sore, so take the night and relax; we will begin at 10 o'clock in the morning. Meals will be served in the cafeteria following this and at 7 tomorrow, and all of the jōnin sensei will be making sure that no one leaves their team suites after midnight." He took a breath and finished by asking, "Are there any questions? The proctors will be more than happy to answer anything you are curious or confused about."

Having finished his part, Minato's eyes strayed from the competitors to other areas of the room. Looking up slightly, he saw all of the present members of the council quietly talking amongst themselves, not even really paying attention to the ceremonies. Drifting further down to the small crowd behind the genin, he saw the instructors of Teams 7-10 talking and the leader of Kabuto's team sulking by his lonesome. The cyclopean Baki stood tall and proud near his team of Sand genin, and the two teachers of the Waterfall and Grass squads were nondescript and alone. However, Minato's eyes lingered on the leader of the Sound team. He wasn't anything special, with long black hair in a ponytail, sharp eyes, and a smirk adorning his face. Still, there was something about him that the Hokage just felt was…familiar…and as he continued to stare, the eyes of the mysterious jōnin suddenly locked onto his, and Minato felt a serious chill run through his body. The feeling dissipated as soon as it arrived but it still left the blonde feeling very strange and suspicious of the man.

As there were no questions, he dismissed the crowd, sighing internally and mentally preparing himself for the chaos to come during the upcoming council meeting. All he could hope for was that he wasn't too tired to assist Kushina in sealing off Neji's curse seal.

_**The next morning**_

"I can't wait to get out there and kick some butt!" Naruto gushed as he climbed the stairs with his friends and classmates to the viewing area on one side of the arena.

"I know exactly what you mean my friend!" Lee bellowed, rushing past everyone to the platform and clenching his fist tightly at the top, "I can only hope that my flames of youth will be enough to carry me through to the next round!"

The herd of Leaf genin was either aghast or exasperated by the antics of the bowlcut ninja, and as such they did their best to edge past him carefully. "Good grief," Shikamaru muttered, looking back at Tenten and Neji who were walking behind him, "Does he really do this every day?"

Neji remained silent, though his eye was twitching in a way that wasn't unusual for one of Lee's outbursts, and Tenten replied exasperatedly, "It's not that bad usually, it's just when he and Guy-sensei are in the same area…"

"Lee! My most youthful student!"

"…it's unbearable…" she finished, making a concerted effort to ignore the ludicrous behavior of her teammate and teacher. Neji's eyes were locked on to a random point on the far wall as he almost robotically walked past, not acknowledging the two once. He and Tenten settled on a part of the platform far enough away from their odd squad mates that there was a decent chance that no one would know of their relation unless they asked.

The whole of Team 10 was either flinching or averting their eyes as they made their way past. "I know you're nuts sometimes, Keisei-sensei, but you've got nothing on those two," Ino commented as they walked over to meet their teacher.

The lone Sarutobi jōnin scratched the back of his head in embarrassment and chuckled nervously. "Is that supposed to be a compliment or insult?" he asked skeptically.

"Yes," was the flat response given by Shikamaru, and the son of the Third Hokage could do nothing but sigh in exasperation, while Chōji merely smiled through a mouthful of celery sticks.

Meanwhile, Team 8 met back up with Uchiha Shisui, who was eyeing the spandex-clad pair with a critical eye. "I'm so glad that Kakashi is the one that Guy is fixated on," he muttered as he looked at his three genin, "That's a hell I wouldn't wish on anyone."

"What did you say, sensei?" Kiba asked loudly; obviously his ears were still somewhat impaired.

"I was just telling Hinata and Shino how awesome you were going to be in the fights today," Shisui replied in an equally elevated tone, smirking sideways at his other two students.

The Inuzuka youth nodded, seemingly satisfied with that answer, and the young Hyūga heiress giggled at her teammate's obliviousness.

At the platform underneath the video board, Minato and Rasa wrapped up a conversation before the former nodded at Hayato, who was manning the controls to the video board nearby. The same council members were now scattered around that platform, either conversing or looking at their children. The sickly jōnin coughed briefly before beginning to punch a few buttons on the keyboard, and the screen lit to life, beginning to rapidly flash through a random assortment of matchups. "We will now begin the third round of the Chūnin Exams," the Hokage announced to everyone present, "Please keep your eyes peeled on the board above me for when your name appears, and present yourself in the arena at this time." Pausing for a moment to catch his breath, he also had one more comment to make before the start of the fights. "I also have one more note to make to the rules. Normally, this would be an elimination round and therefore would have no effect on your candidacy for the rank of chūnin, but because both Lord Kazekage and myself are present, as well as the entirety of the Hidden Leaf Clan Council, if there are genin here that are eliminated but are deemed worthy to be promoted, they will receive their fair due."

That caused a minor stir amongst the contestants, but the murmuring quickly dispersed as the board beeped a number of times before showing the first match of the third round of the Chūnin Exams…

**Uzumaki Naruto **

**vs.**

**Hyūga Hinata**

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned!

**Review Responses:**

**windwarrior234: **Well, as you can see, the Byakugan part is sorta right…what he wants with it is still to be seen. Zaku is batshit crazy and I love it. He and Dosu don't get any love, and I have plans for that particular squad. And I know I sorta took the coward's way out with Orochimaru, but his part is yet to come. Lots of twists are coming…like the end of this chapter haha.


	16. (Chūnin Exams 8) Chapter 15

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Near the central tower of the Forest of Death, the Hidden Grass team soundly defeated a Rain squad and made their way to the end, but not before one of the stragglers seriously injured and compromised the integrity of the ninja career of the Grass ninja Chigaya. Elsewhere, Neji is revealed to have taken the blow from Orochimaru in Hinata's place, and as the rogue made his escape, the curse seal he left behind began to activate. As portions of three Leaf teams watch in horror and confusion, the curse seal actually parasitizes Neji's original Caged Bird Seal, causing it to disappear back into the origin at his shoulder. The teams then made their way to the tower, and Naruto explained how he came to be in the forest again instead of with his team like everyone expected. Later, after everyone had made it there, the Kages, Hiashi, and a team of medics examined the seal, and after confirming that there was nothing wrong with him as long as he didn't use it, Neji agreed to have it sealed. The next day, the final stage of the Chūnin Exams began, with a shocker of a first match in Naruto versus Hinata…

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 15 – Love-Struck and Revenge-Ridden! The Push to Make a Point!**

Minato stared at the video board for almost ten seconds before sighing in resignation and chuckling nervously. Of all the possible matchups to create, this had to be one of them, and as the first one no less! Rasa noticed this and asked in curiosity, "What is it?"

"Well…" the blonde Hokage stalled because he really couldn't think of a good way to state the problem at hand without making it sound awkward. Luckily, Hiashi didn't have any qualms about the mood, and as such his blunt explanation was more than enough to clear the air.

"To start with, there is not a thing in the world that I love more than my daughter, except for my youngest and my wife. I want that to be perfectly clear," he explained thoroughly. The red-haired leader of Hidden Sand nodded slowly, and the Hyūga clan leader continued, "However, despite all of personality traits that are truly a blessing to our admittedly stiff clan, she has one fault that can be borderline debilitating at the worst possible times."

The Kazekage raised an eyebrow at this; he had not been aware of any physical deformity with the young heiress and could only guess at what was wrong with her. "And that would be…?" he pressed further.

Hiashi's eyes darted back and forth between two people rather fast, though it wasn't immediately obvious who he was looking at. He finally sighed and turned his head slightly to address the foreign leader. "She has a rather deep infatuation with her opponent in this match, who just so happens to be Lord Hokage's son." Rasa raised an eyebrow in muted amusement and looked to his equal, who merely continued his nervous laughter.

"Yup, that about sums it up," he chuckled, "And my son can be pretty dense at times, so who knows if he's even aware of it."

From behind them, Kushina piped up and added, "Come on you guys. Hiashi is just overprotective. I think it's rather cute, personally." She stuck her tongue out playfully when said father turned around to glare at her briefly, and the perky redhead added under her breath, "Spoilsport…"

Back on the Hidden Leaf platform, there were a number of different responses. "This is one hundred percent going to result in a troublesome situation," Shikamaru muttered, leaning forward over the railing to look at each of his classmates further down. He scratched his head, knowing the temperaments of both competitors better than likely anyone there. He turned his head slightly towards his blonde teammate and asked. "Are they even going to be able to fight each other?"

"For once I agree with your lazy-ass attitude," Ino added, eyeing Hinata especially with a worried look in her eyes, "and I can't honestly say. At the very least this will be an interesting fight, right?" That last statement was made with very little certainly in her voice, and the lazy Nara rolled his eyes and shrugged as a matter of response. Chōji chose not to say anything but continued to chew on his food with a contemplative look on his face.

Sasuke glanced to his right, where Naruto looked to be somewhat distraught, and said smoothly, "Boy, this should be interesting, huh?"

For that, he received a snappy, "Yeah for you maybe," and a nasty look before the blonde leaped over the railing. As his smile faded, the Uchiha youth's eyes strayed to his teammate's opponent as he regarded her with an unreadable expression. Sakura didn't say a thing to her teammate but rather ran back down the platform and whispered something in her best friend's ear before the two continued further and met up with Tenten. There, they began to chatter furiously amongst themselves.

Meanwhile, Shino turned slightly and looked at his female teammate. Hinata's eyes were unnaturally large, and her face was surprisingly fearful. "What's wrong?" the soft-spoken Aburame asked her.

She turned her head his way, and he could see the tears glistening in her eyes. "I-I-I can't fight N-N-Naruto!" she stammered wildly, "There's no way I-I-I'd win…and besides…!"

Behind the high collar of his shirt, Shino frowned, and Shisui did the same as he walked over and knelt down before her. "I thought we had gotten you over that mindset, young lady," he said somewhat sternly before poking her in the forehead lightly, stopping her sniffling momentarily and fully catching her attention. "You need to stop saying I can't and start asking what can I do, okay? I'm not debating the fact that Naruto is one of the most powerful genin in this exam, but you have just as much right to the victory as he does, as does anyone here, and you have the chance to really prove something to him here."

"W-What do you mean?" she asked in confusion.

The elder Uchiha poked her again, causing her to wince and give him a somewhat stern look through her tears. "What I mean is that even you may not be able to tell him your feelings in words quite yet, you may be able to relay your thoughts through your fists. It's a tried and true method, and I know from experience that it works." His face grew contemplative momentarily before he caught himself and continued. "And the most important thing in my opinion is that I think he'll respect you for giving him everything you've got. There isn't a genin present here who doesn't respect you, and he is no different, okay?" He then tapped the eye patch covering the spot where his left eye would have been and grinned conspiratorially, "And don't forget, your father taught you the basics of Jūken, but thanks to this gift of mine, I have a couple of tricks of my own that I've taught you that should come in handy at some point during this fight." She nodded, and Shisui could proudly note that her demeanor was much more assured, and her tears had mostly dissipated. The leader of Team 8 stood up and pointed out into the arena. "Now, get out there and make us proud!" With renewed confidence, Hinata nodded, shaking away her tears, and leapt down into the arena.

"Let's go Hinata!" Kiba shouted at the top of his lungs, again not carrying about the ears of those around him, "Kick his butt! He ain't nothin' special!" Akamaru added some loud barks of encouragement as well.

Lee wasn't about to be left out in the celebration of one's energy and he expressed it as such in his typical exuberant manner, "Hinata! Your flames of youth will shine through spectacularly in this battle! I know you will show us all what you're truly made of!"

Guy added his two cents as well. "YOSH!" he bellowed, "This will truly be a battle for the ages! I cannot wait to see how this celebration of the youth of the Hidden Leaf Village plays out!" Both spandex clad ninja were clutching their fists in excitement and gesturing wildly, though for once not many of their fellow villagers gathered there had much of an issue.

Neji wasn't about to do something so massively flamboyant as his teammate and sensei, but he did manage to catch his cousin's eye, and he gave her a soft nod, letting her know that he believed in her. She responded with a quick nod of her own, and then looked to her father. While he did retain his stoic Hyūga stature, he did more than just nod and gave her a slightly concealed thumbs-up in his crossed arms as well as a soft smile. She smiled back at him, and then turned to face her crush.

The other Leaf kunoichi were just as fired up as Lee and Guy were, and they let their friend know it. "Go get him girl!" Ino shouted, waving her arm wildly.

"You got this!" Tenten added, throwing some peace signs Hinata's way.

"Kick his butt!" Sakura finally added in a very cheerful manner, earning her the ire of her teammate in the arena.

"Oi, oi, oi, Sakura, what's that about?" Naruto whined loudly, spinning around to face the Leaf platform. "What's going on? Is no one supporting me here?" He whirled around and looked to his parents for some support. "Mom, Dad, what about you, huh?" he shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at them, "You've got my back, right?"

The blonde leader of the Hidden Leaf Village chuckled nervously again and replied, "Well…I'm the Hokage, so technically I'm supposed to have the back of every genin in this exam from our village. That being said, good luck to both of you!" That obviously wasn't the right answer, as Naruto's face went completely flat, with his eyes narrowed in his father's direction.

A truly devious idea ran through Kushina's mind, and she piped up from behind her husband and added cheerfully, "I know you'll do well, sweetie! Make mommy proud!" Her son's face then immediately went from annoyed to aghast, and a low rumble of chuckles ran through the arena, even from the more stoic people present.

Thoroughly disgusted, Naruto slapped his face, turned back around, (mostly just to get the match started so the snickers would go away) and faced the young Hyūga heiress. His expression had melted into a genuine smile, showing that most of his rant was just for show, though his pride was slightly damaged by his mother's untimely remarks. "Are you ready, Hinata?" he asked, his confidence almost completely returned and his face radiating in happiness.

"Yes!" she replied, her earlier fears almost completely dispersed as she settled into a fighting position.

Genma, who was standing nearby, looked at both competitors, and finding no objections on either of their expressions, he said simply, "Begin!"

Moving at the exact moment that the words left the proctor's lips, Hinata surprised everyone by being the first one to act, dashing forward at surprising speeds as she activated her Byakugan. Approaching the blonde within moments of the indication to begin, she came to a halt a few feet short of her opponent and pulled both of her arms back, charging them with the chakra of her clan's famed taijutsu style. Her target was equally as shocked as everyone else at her abilities (as well as her initiative) and had little time to react to her head on charge, so all he was able was to bring his arms up to defend his core.

Everyone in the arena even peripherally familiar with the Hyūga clan could see that Hinata was preparing an assault using the famous Hakke Rokujūyonshō (Eight Trigrams, Sixty-Four Palms), and they were not mistaken in the least. The young heiress initiated the complicated taijutsu dance, foregoing the incantation of each round for the sake of speed. The first level of two nailed a chakra points in each of his arms. Rearing back for the next iteration and striking once more, her targets were two spots in the young man's legs, but the blonde used the small amount of momentum from being struck earlier to nimbly dodge both finger jabs. Nevertheless, Hinata kept up her attack, but Naruto's evasion of that one set allowed him to avoid around half of the subsequent blows, and as the sixty-fourth strike was reached, not much damage had been dealt to the jinchūriki.

"She's going to have to do better than that," Shikamaru commented dully as the competitors reset their positions, "Naruto's too fast for her to accurately hit him that many times, and I guarantee that the Kyūbi has some sort of way to forcibly open up his chakra points." He glanced over at Kiba and Shino and added, "No offense, but she seems pretty outmatched."

"You're right," said Shisui, and everyone nearby looked to him as if he was crazy for admitting that. He held up a finger to stave off any protests as he continued, "We've all worked on bolstering our maximum chakra capacity, and working with Kiba and Akamaru has definitely helped her speed and agility, but I would still say that Naruto has the advantage when it comes to abilities. But…part of being a chūnin is knowing how to scout your opponent and lure them into a false sense of security, as well as not playing all of your cards from the outset." The other three jōnin teachers nodded knowingly, while the genin were left to ponder that odd statement.

Just as soon as Shisui's words faded into the air, Hinata once again drew close to Naruto, doing everything in her power to ensure that there was no room for error. Ignoring the cries and protests from the crowd, she once more initiated her clan's famed technique. The jinchūriki was somewhat taken aback at her choice of attack, and as such he was again unprepared for her initial blows. However, as she proceeded through two, four, eight, and sixteen palms, the blonde quickly grew wise to the pattern of her attack, and the levels of thirty-two and the final sixty-four were hardly effective at all. All in all, the Uzumaki youth had received just less than a full onslaught of the Hakke Rokujūyonshō from both dance iterations, but as he straightened back up, everyone present could see that he wasn't feeling all that hindered. Still, he made no move to counterattack, instead choosing to regard the young woman with an unreadable expression on his face.

Hinata righted herself again but didn't fall back into her Jūken stance this time. Instead, her brows knitted together, and her face took on a very uncharacteristic look of displeasure. "Why aren't you taking this seriously, Naruto?" she asked softly, her voice a mixture of timid and stern.

"And there it is," Shikamaru interjected again, "Troublesome…"

"She's right, though," Sasuke added, catching the attention of the genin, "It's almost like that knucklehead isn't trying at all. We all know that if he wanted to end this, he could have done very quickly. All he's doing is blocking and dodging, and Hinata's the only one attacking."

"That is very much unlike Naruto, huh?" Sakura mused, having returned to her teammate and teacher.

Ino tapped her lips with her index finger a couple of times before saying, "It's like they've reversed roles or something. Naruto's definitely the attacker of the two, and Hinata is definitely more of a defender or support type, but they're really not playing up to their strengths so far."

"That's true," the leader of Team 10 stated with a smile, "but sometimes people need to break with convention in order to transcend their own limits."

Chōji gave him an odd look and asked, "What are you talking about, Keisei-sensei?" A number of the other genin looked confused as well at the cryptic statement.

"You'll see," he replied, waving them off, "I think I know what Shisui is trying to get at here." Realizing that they weren't going to get an answer, the group returned their attention to the conversing opponents.

Seeing as the blonde had not made any indication of answering, Hinata inquired again, "What's wrong, Naruto? Why aren't you taking this seriously?"

"What are you talking about?" he asked, trying to feign confusion, "I haven't had a chance to take this seriously." He chuckled a little, "You've been attacking so much that you haven't given me a window to do anything."

"That's not true and you know it. All you're doing is dodging and avoiding my attacks, and you're doing nothing to counterattack when given the opportunity," she pressed him, "Is there something wrong?"

"No…it's just…well…I'm…uh…" he bungled his way through a number of excuses in his head and continued to stammer a bunch of nonsense before sighing in resignation. "Fine, fine. You're not going to let up, are you?" Seeing her affirmation of that, he resigned himself to admitting his issue and said, "The truth is…I'm afraid that if I go all out, I'm going to hurt you. You're my friend, and a fellow ninja of the Hidden Leaf Village, and most importantly… you're a girl! My mother always taught me never to hit a girl!" He conveniently forgot to mention the threats that his mother issued to him in that regard, but the effect was still there. His confession of sorts drew a number of groans and murmurs from the genin, especially from the foreign squads, but Minato looked quite impressed with his boy, Kushina clapped appreciatively, while Hiashi's lips showed just a hint of a smile.

Hinata's expression melted into a soft smile and a light blush, especially his announcement of friendship. "That doesn't mean we can't go all out. This is what we're here for, to prove something to everyone watching, and for some of us…" she paused for a moment trying to find the right words, "…we need to do this to transmit our true thoughts and feelings to the people we care for deeply."

Naruto's expression began to lighten slightly, and he tentatively asked, "Are you sure? I won't use the full extent of my power because that would be overkill, but I'll still use enough to keep you on your toes."

The indigo-haired girl nodded, and her expression hardened slightly. "If it's you, I know everything will be fine." She caught her opponent off guard with that statement, but she gave him no time to respond. "Now, show me what you've got, Naruto!" she shouted uncharacteristically, falling back into her Jūken pose. Her crush nodded with a grin, and before she could even react, he had palmed two smoke bombs and smashed them on the ground nearby, obscuring the immediate area where he had been standing.

Hinata cautiously took a step back, her enhanced vision locked on to the spot where the blonde had been. Her eyes widened in slight surprise as the chakra signature of the blonde tripled, and she reaffirmed her stance in preparation. Suddenly, Naruto and a clone phased into the space right in front of the young Hyūga, both on all fours with bijū chakra cloaks activated to two tails. 'Kurama,' he sent a message to his tenant, "Let me do this on my own, and don't do anything if my chakra nodes become blocked or jammed.'

'**Understood,**' the large fox rumbled back internally, '**I think I know what you're doing**.'

Naruto quickly thanked him for his compliance before thrusting one of his ethereal claws forward, aiming straight for his opponent's gut while his clone used an arm as a pivot to attack with a leg sweep. Hinata was truly astonished at both her opponent's willingness to comply with her demands as well as the sheer speed he possessed, and almost in a mirror image of their first exchange, she brought both of her arms up to defend the stabbing hand. At the same time, she nimbly leapt over the sweep, leaving her open to take the full brunt of the frontal attack but allowing the Hyūga heiress create some space thanks to the blowback.

The jinchūriki kept up his barrage, both versions prancing across the arena floor towards their mutual opponent, reaching her just after her graceful descent back to the ground, managing to keep her balance and remain on both feet. Both Kurama-powered Narutos reared back the fists of their outer arms (relative to each other) and began to rain down a hail of punches at the young woman. Again, there was a notable reversal of roles occurring. Hinata was doing an admirable job keeping up with the assault of her crush in duplicate, but a few strikes were making their way through her guard, mostly causing minor bruising on her arms and shins.

As she leaned over the railing and watched this furious exchange, Tenten turned her head slightly to look at her stoic teammate, standing next to her with an unreadable expression on his face. "What's wrong?" she asked, temporarily averting her eyes from the fight to fully face Neji.

"Nothing's wrong," he replied, and the bun-haired genin could see the hint of a smile forming on his face. "It's just refreshing to see her have enough confidence in herself to fight with Naruto, not only a formidable opponent in his own right but also someone she cares for immensely."

Tenten shrugged and quickly shot back, "It's just that she didn't seem all that confident when the match was announced. Who's to say that this isn't going to evaporate as soon as the match is over?"

"You're probably right." That response floored the weapons master, especially coming from Hinata's cousin, but she refrained from speaking because Neji continued with his explanation, "Changing someone's personality isn't something that happens overnight. It often takes significant effort and willingness on the part of the individual to want to change. I learned that first hand many years ago, and it affected my life in ways I cannot even begin to understand." His eyes drifted from his teammate's face, and Tenten followed his line of sight to where the Hyūga prodigy's uncle stood. "And just because there is a desire to change doesn't mean that you have to completely overhaul every aspect of your being. Hinata wants and is desperate to be able to express her feelings to Naruto, but her inherent shyness and gentle nature restricts much of that."

"However…" a new voice cut in, and those two, as well as Lee standing nearby, turned more to face Guy, whose face was surprisingly calm, "…no matter how suppressed it is, her pride as a member of the Hyūga clan allows her some level of confidence, and it is important to not forget that crucial fact. Additionally, Uchiha Shisui is a once in a lifetime talent in this village, only rivaled by his late cousin, and he has obviously had a hand in shaping his student into a better person over this past year. While she has a long ways to go, he has molded her into someone who can express her emotions in ways outside of her words, and I can only hope that Naruto understands her motivation and feelings even a little better at the conclusion of this battle."

"Huh…" Tenten mused, turning back to observe the match, "I guess I don't know the other genin as well as I thought."

Neji chuckled slightly and replied, "You're fine. Now watch, I think Hinata's about to surprise all of us again."

Naruto had continued his relentless barrage alongside his clone, but the Hyūga heiress had grown wise to his attack pattern, and slowly but surely, she was discovering a number of holes that she could exploit. Soon enough, she found it when both blondes overextended on their punches. Darting forward as she ducked underneath the punches, the lithe genin sprung back up behind the two, quickly falling into the stance of the Hakke Rokujūyonshō. Both Narutos were too slow to react and as such were unprepared for the assault from behind. "Hakke…Nishō!" she shouted, jabbing both of the clones once…before disappearing in a 'poof!' The jinchūriki pair stumbled back a few steps, and seeing that their opponent had disappeared, all they could do was look around in confusion.

"Yonshō!" This came from behind the two blondes again, and the observers were amazed that she was able to get behind her opponent with such ease as she tapped both once more and phased away again.

"Hasshō!" This time was from the side, and the movement from the Shunshin (Body Flicker) carried her around so she could nail both blondes with two strikes.

"Jūrokushō!" This was much the same as the last round, except that she appeared on the other side and with double the strikes.

"Sanjūnisho!" Surprising everyone once more, she combined both techniques in to a blurring assault as she flew around the two youths.

"Rokujūyonshō!" Hinata finished her fantastic new attack with an accelerated version of the previous level, ending with simultaneous slaps to the chests of the blondes…who both burst out of existence, having taken way too much damage in the assault and much to the surprise of many of the genin and delight of the elder ninja. Looking around frantically, even with her near-omniscient vision she couldn't locate the original standing anywhere in the arena.

"Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique)!" a voice rang out from far overhead. The Hyūga heiress's head shot up, as well as most everyone else gathered at the arena, and saw a hailstorm of multiplying, metallic weapons cascading down from the ceiling, originating with a lone orange and black figure standing upside-down.

Knowing that there was no chance of deflecting or dodging every single one of the projectiles, she was forced into resorting to using most of the remainder of her chakra into, "Hakkeshō Kaiten!" Energy emitted from every pore of her body and erupted into a protective, swirling dome. Moments later, the projectiles began to strike it fast and furiously, ricocheting off and falling harmlessly to the floor, but the barrier held throughout the seemingly endless barrage.

As the last of the metal stars clattered aside, Hinata's chakra finally began to fail her, and the Kaiten unraveled, leaving her panting heavily. Still, as the real Naruto fell to the arena ground, she began a slow trot to the area near where he was going to land, wanting to hit one last attack. The blonde's feet hit, and he crouched to dispel the impact before righting himself and walking forward. After only a few steps, he gently pulled his arm back and threw his fist forward, impacting the pale-eyed girl's palm and stopping her in her tracks.

As their hands connected, both pairs of eyes widened, their faces sporting near identical looks of surprise. They stood like that for a few seconds before Hinata asked softly, "Do you understand, just a little?" Naruto nodded, somewhat in shock, and the young woman smiled faintly before her strength ran out on her. The blonde quickly moved to catch her before she hit the ground, and he heard her mutter, "Thank you," before losing consciousness.

Genma walked over and took one look at her before saying, "Hyūga Hinata is unable to battle. Uzumaki Naruto is the winner!" The group began to clap and cheer, not just for the show put on by the winner but also for the loser, who fought valiantly and gave every ounce of effort she had. As the sound resonated through the area, the blonde victor gingerly hoisted the indigo-haired girl's body into his arms and made his way back to the Leaf platform.

Nearing his group of friends and their jōnin leaders, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned around to stare into the lone eye of Uchiha Shisui. "I know she already said it, but thank you," he murmured truthfully, "I hope you know how much she wanted to prove to you in that fight."

"Yeah…" Naruto replied softly as he set the exhausted young woman down, "I think I do…" The leader of Team 8 clapped him on the shoulder again, and the young man wandered back off to where his team was, passing the other Uchiha in the room as he went.

Sasuke walked directly up to his cousin and asked bluntly, "What was that all about? Do you want to let me in on your little secret?" Shisui raised a questioning eyebrow, though the corner of his mouth twitched up, prompting further questioning, "Did something happen down there that we don't know about?" Around them, Ino, Chōji, Sakura, Tenten, and Lee all tried to surreptitiously lean in, while Shikamaru cracked an eye open.

The elder Uchiha turned to face his younger cousin…and poked him softly in the forehead. Sasuke winced briefly before slapping the hand away, and as he glared at his relative, the team leader replied, "Don't worry about it, cousin. Just concentrate on the matches at hand, and wait for your name to appear. Look…you may be next." He pointed at the screen, and everyone followed his finger to the large board, where the next match had just appeared.

**Nara Shikamaru**

**vs.**

**Ashiboso**

"Aw, man," the shadow user grumbled, "Why do I have to fight so early?"

Ino rolled her eyes and snapped back, "Quit whining, you lazy ass. Think about it this way – the quicker you lose, the sooner you can go back to sleeping or cloud watching or whatever the heck else you were doing!" No one missed the blonde's lack of the option of winning.

Chōji offered his friend a hand and pulled him to his feet, saying, "Cut him some slack, Ino. I'm not so sure I'd want to fight that guy either." He jerked his thumb towards the arena, where the towering Ashiboso stood, impatiently tapping his foot. "Go get him, buddy," he added, and Shikamaru gave a light wave as he vaulted over the railing.

Genma, seeing both competitors now in the rink, raised his voice and announced, "The second match of the preliminary round begins now!" before leaping away.

The towering genin wasted no time, unrolling a scroll from his back pocket and infusing chakra into it. Out of the seal, two large axes appeared, and he grabbed them, wielding the unconventional weapons like nunchaku. "I hope you're ready, little man!" his deep voice boomed before he began a slow walk across the arena.

Shikamaru's droopy eyes regarded his opponent analytically, and after a moment of thought, he extracted two kunai from his holster and lightly gripped them in a defensive posture. Seeing this, Ashiboso sped up his charge, breaking out into a full on sprint. As he neared the Leaf genin, he swung the two axes into a normal grip and brought them down in a crossing pattern, aiming right at the ponytailed youth's neck.

Ducking forward, Shikamaru managed to slip under the initial strike and slashed at the wooden handle of each weapon before kicking his opponent and escaping via a backflip. Ashiboso staggered back a few feet but was mostly unfazed, and as such he renewed his assault, this time choosing to slash at his smaller counterpart with one axe at a time. Using his kunai in unison, the Nara genin was able to stave off most of the deadly swings, and at every chance he had, he attempted to attack the wooden handles.

This attack pattern continued for a number of exchanges, and the large Grass woodsman was seemingly unwise to the gradual damage being sustained by his weapons. Finally, Shikamaru spotted an opening, and he nimbly dodged another downward swing. The axe sliced into the cement floor and stuck there for a moment, which is all he needed. Sweeping his leg, the crafty warrior nailed the weak point in the handle, and the damage was too great. The wood shattered, leaving Ashiboso with nothing wooden shards in his hand.

Falling prey to his own rage, the giant roared and tried to cut down his opponent in the same manner with the other blade, but the result was the same, as Shikamaru dodged and counterattacked once more, rendering him weaponless. To ensure that the sharp edges wouldn't be used against him later on, he stamped down on each one, firmly embedding the axe blade into the cement

Ashiboso jumped back and seethed in anger for a few moments before he took a deep breath and appeared to relax. "You're good, I'll give you that," the towering genin rumbled, "But…I'm not a one trick pony." He extracted yet another scroll from his hip pouch and activated the seal on it, causing a large clear jug filled with a viscous brown liquid to appear. His large hands crushed the flimsy walls of the container, and the material flowed all over his hands as he made a seal, shouting, "Hijutsu – Mēpuru Shiruppu Shibari (Secret Technique – Life Quivering Soup Vase Limit OR Maple Syrup Binding). The sticky liquid, now revealed through the name of the technique, swirled up his arms in a spiraling pattern, almost like two brown ropes. Before the flow had even stopped, he charged at Shikamaru at surprising speeds.

The Nara boy was unable to even get a technique off to defend himself due to the superior velocity of the huge genin, and the only thing he could do is bring his arms up in a crossing guard. Ashiboso's fist crashed into his defense, and the Leaf youth was forced back a few feet but held his ground. Suddenly, the maple syrup came to life, flying off its controller's arms like dual serpents, and wrapped around Shikamaru, spreading as it attached to him. The Grass genin backed off as his target began to flail around, trying to get the liquid off and failing miserably.

"Having some trouble moving?" Ashiboso asked in a taunting manner, "My syrup is the pride of the Hidden Grass Village, extracted from some of the largest trees in the land and nurtured with chakra to strengthen and enhance the liquid. There's no way you can escape from it…" He began a new string of handseals and added, "…and just in case you had some kind of idea, let me dispel that motion right now! Katon – Jōhatsu no Jutsu (Fire Style – Evaporation Technique)!" Very abruptly, the temperature of the room spiked dramatically, the effect spreading even to the spectators.

"Boy, it's like we never left home, huh?" Kankurō joked; the three Sand siblings were some of the few present in the arena that weren't significantly affected by the change in heat thanks to the climate of their parent village.

On the other platform, the Leaf ninja had begun to sweat profusely. "What's that idiot doing?" Naruto complained, having mostly returned to his happy-go-lucky demeanor, "It's summertime, we don't need any more heat!"

"You're telling me!" Ino simpered nearby, as she viewed the sweat beading on her arms in disgust, and Sakura nodded in agreement, wiping her forehead with a cloth from her pouch.

After about thirty seconds, the temperature began to normalize, and the spectators were able to stop concentrating on the heat and look at what was happening on the floor. Ashiboso's position hadn't changed at all, but Shikamaru was in a true predicament. His entire body was now covered in the sticky liquid, which had hardened into glossy amber. He looked as if he had been attempting to escape or jump away; one of his feet wasn't even touching the ground, and the other was on its tips, and his head was leaning backwards, much like the beginning of a backflip. The only thing keeping him from falling over was the congealed, hardened syrup that had pooled at his feet. "Nice try, but not only do you look ridiculous, but I told you that there was no escape from my technique," he chuckled ominously.

Shikamaru was just able to see his opponent over his cheeks, and he was able to smirk slightly, much to the surprise of the towering genin. "It does appear that way…" he managed to grate out, "but before you do whatever you were planning on doing, take a look at your feet."

Ashiboso looked confused but complied with the request out of curiosity, and his eyes opened in horror at what he saw. "What the hell is that?" he yelled, pointing at his shadow…connected by a thin black line to his opponent.

"You should know better than to physically attack someone of the Nara clan when shadows are present," the crafty genin said simply, "and the moment I activate my Kage Mane no Jutsu, your body will lock into the exact position that I'm stuck in. I figure gravity will take care of the rest."

The towering Grass genin's eyes began to dart around, and he made to run away, as far as possible, but his body stopped responding to him as the technique kicked in with a mental signal from Shikamaru. He couldn't stop his feet from rising off the floor, and his head tilting back, and the last thing his eyes saw was the ceiling flying by at high speed before…nothing.

As Ashiboso's head hit the floor with a loud 'crack,' the solidified syrup shattered without the chakra flow to sustain it, and formerly trapped youth stumbled backwards a few feet before righting himself. He began to stretch out his limbs as Genma walked over and confirmed the status of the unconscious genin before announcing, "Ashiboso is unable to battle. Nara Shikamaru is the winner!"

As the victor slowly made his way over to and back up the stairs to meet back up with his teammates, and a team of medics ran out with a stretcher, the screen lit back up and began to flash through names. "Good job, Shikamaru," Keisei congratulated his student as he arrived back at the platform, "I was a little worried there for a moment."

"Whatever," he replied, taking a few chips from Chōji's proffered bag, "Morons like him are easy to read…though…" he paused as he poked a number of times at his clothes, which were still obviously sticky, "…I could have done without this troublesome syrup."

"You'll be fine, you whiner," his sensei rebuked good-naturedly, "Now let's see who's in the next match." He pointed at the board, which was beginning to slow to a halt to announce the next fighters…

**Inuzuka Kiba**

**vs.**

**Dosu Kinuta**

"Oh hell yes!" Kiba hollered loudly, "I've been wanting to give those Sound creeps a beating ever since I got my hearing back!"

Shino turned and touched his friend on the shoulder lightly. "Kiba, don't get too fired up." The Inuzuka turned around and gave his teammate a quizzical look, and the insect user repeated his statement in a raised voice and continued, "Don't let your emotions get hold of you. It may not end well for you if you don't keep a level head on your shoulders."

The dog master waved off his friend and leapt over the railing, Akamaru following close behind. They landed on the floor, with the medium size puppy on top of his friend's back as the human half of the pair dropped to all fours. A few moments later, Dosu shuffled within a few yards of his soon-to-be opponent, and Genma signaled the match to begin with an exclamation of "Begin!"

Immediately, Kiba formed a handseal and exclaimed, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" before he and his puppy were obscured by a small cloud of smoke.

"What the heck?" Naruto squawked in surprise, "How does he know that technique?"

Sakura sighed at her teammate's denseness, and Sasuke added, "Probably the same way I know it. I learned it, you dope."

"Yeah but you have the Sharingan, so you basically cheated…" the blonde tried to protest, but Kakashi shut that down really fast.

"The Second Hokage's technique is a relatively common technique among many of the jōnin and a large number of chūnin in the Hidden Leaf Village," the gray-haired teacher stated factually, "And, I have it on good authority that learning how to create Shadow Clones is a typical part of the learning process of the Inuzuka Jūjin (Beast-Human) taijutsu style. You've just taken a simple technique and begun its evolution into an ability capable of taking down an entire army if honed to its fullest." Naruto couldn't really come up with a good excuse to counter that and chose to shut his mouth and watch the fight. The smoke was beginning to clear, and where one oversized teenager stood were now three copies of Kiba, all glaring at the Sound genin fiercely. Dosu hadn't moved yet, but his cocked eye was trained right on his three opponents.

Once more, the three Inuzuka youths fell to all fours, and the middle one barked out, "Now…get ready for one of the Inuzuka Jūjin Taijutsu Ōgi (Secret Art)…Gasenga (Fang Drilling Fang)!" All three teens shot off the ground away from their mutual opponent, beginning to spin rapidly as they swung around and met near the place from which they had taken off. As they converged together, the single cones began to revolve around each other, forming a massive drill that shot towards Dosu.

The Sound genin huffed; this was a rather obvious attack pattern, and it would be no problem to dodge it. With a light tap of his Melody Arm, he leapt into the air, and the Inuzuka trio flew underneath harmlessly. Many of the Leaf genin began to mutter under their breath about Kiba's foolish tunnel vision, and Zaku immediately began cackling, shouting, "These Leaf ninja are absolute morons!"

Dosu didn't verbalize anything, but he had to agree with his teammate; that attack wasn't very well planned out. At least, he thought that until the three prongs of the drill separated and split off, curving upwards just short of the dignitary section of the arena and curling back towards the defenseless Sound genin, trapped in the air with three separate attacks incoming. Still, he didn't appear to be all that worried, as he quickly brought his hands together and murmured, "Kūki Kyūshū (Atmospheric Absorption)…" Nothing seemingly happened as the drills in triplicate barreled towards their target…until they hit an invisible barrier radiating out about five yards from Dosu. When they passed that borderline, all three immediately fell out of their drill shapes and began to clutch at their throats, gasping for air that wasn't there. Without the momentum of their technique, they began to fall towards the arena floor

The Sound genin was falling at a comparable speed, keeping his prey within his technique, and his eye darted between all three genin copies before he locked on to one and whispered, "Got you…" He reached out and grabbed one of the Inuzuka youths by the throat with his right arm, and with his left, he tapped the giant device.

Neji's eyes, having been activated the entire time, caught sight of the massive buildup of chakra in the genin's arm, and he hissed, "That's not good."

"What's wrong?" Tenten asked.

The Hyūga prodigy's expression was grim as he explained, "He's built up a massive amount of chakra into that device. If he activates that technique of his that Hinata and Shino told us about, he could kill either Kiba or Akamaru." The bun-haired girl nodded in reluctant acknowledgement as she turned back to the fight.

Dosu whispered ominously, "Kyōmeisen (Resonating Echo Drill)!" and the youth trapped in his grasp began to howl in protest, squirming and flailing in a failed attempt to break loose. As the sounds grew louder, to the point that even the genin and jōnin below could hear it, the howls turned to yelps, and the transformation faded, revealing a stricken Akamaru, bleeding from his ears and losing the will to fight fast. After a few more seconds, the twitching ceased completely, and the Sound genin reared his arm back and threw the limp body towards the ground, with no one near enough to save the poor pup…

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! I'm not sure if I like the first fight…hopefully it isn't too bad. I went back through and added a bunch of stuff after I wrote it initially, and it seems better to me now. I also dropped a couple of massive hint bombs in here if you know where to look for them, so feel free to hit me up and call me out on them.

I'm also blown away at the lack of shock at Asuma and Kurenai's absence as well as Shisui's presence. Was that just not all that surprising or what?

**Review Responses:**

**windwarrior234: **I'm glad I surprised you! I think there's a world of opportunities available with Neji now, both in the sense of helping the Hyūga clan reform as well as some Orochimaru/rage-related activities. Karin won't be a major player (like main character level) but rest assured, her presence will be noted by someone on the clan council (hint: the Uzumaki clan has an honorary seat there). And I hope you enjoyed the way I did their fight. I kinda yolo-ed it, but I hope the end result is something satisfactory.

**Rose Tiger: **That probably should have been the title of Chapter 12 haha.

**zigmas: **I hope I didn't disappoint in the follow up!


	17. (Chūnin Exams 9) Chapter 16

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** As the spectators mused about the fight between the mostly clueless Naruto and the lovesick and terrified Hinata, Shisui encouraged his student not to back down from the fight and to use it as a method to convey her feelings. Using this, the Hyūga heiress surprised everyone and was the main offensive force, keeping the blonde solely on the defensive for the first few minutes of fighting. However, her accusation that he wasn't taking the fight seriously and subsequent plea to do just that reenergized the jinchūriki, and he quickly took over the fight, though Hinata wouldn't go down without one last strike that spoke volumes. The next match featured Shikamaru against the Grass genin Ashiboso, who came out swinging with axes that the crafty Leaf ninja eventually rendered ineffective. His next gooey attack was met with false success, but Shikamaru lured his opponent into falling for his trap, giving him the victory. Finally, Kiba had a chance at revenge on the Sound genin Dosu, and he seemingly had the upper hand, until the mummy man snatched Akamaru out of the air, tortured him with his Melody Arm, and seemingly sent him spiraling to an early death…

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 16 – Leaf Revenge or Sound Domination? Akamaru and Neji in Peril…!**

The limp body of Kiba's puppy and lifelong companion careened towards the ground, with no signs of movement whatsoever. There were numerous yells and cries from the audience for someone to help out, but Genma didn't make any sort of move to assist, and the other two copies of the Inuzuka youth were stuck in their own free fall, unable to move vertically any faster.

Averting his eyes from his opponents momentarily, Dosu murmured, "One down…" With a horrific crunch, Akamaru slammed into the ground, and all of the girls screamed and covered their eyes, while the guys all flinched at the gory visage, at least slightly. That is, until the downed pup disappeared with a poof of air, and the mummy Sound genin's lone visible eye widened in surprise.

"I guess you aren't the only one who likes to trick people with Shadow Clones and transformations, huh?" Kakashi stated with a look towards his blonde pupil, who nodded in surprise at the cunning of his speedy friends.

At the same time, both Kibas grinned deviously and exchanged a look with each other. They both quickly engaged in separate spinning drills and shot towards the ground in loops, seemingly angling towards a collision. As the speedy Inuzuka youths met only a few inches from the floor, their momentum slowed, and they fell out of their attacks to tap hands and feet. Bursting away from the other, using the partner as a stepping-stone of sorts, they shot back up at even greater speeds towards the now defenselessly hanging Dosu, who was fast approaching the ground.

This time, the twin Inuzukas began to tightly spin around their prey, whipping up high winds and keeping him from hitting the floor with their movement, shouting, "Garōkenga (Fang Wolf Fist Fang OR Fang Tornado Fang)" Their frenzied spirals sped up even further, and in addition to the grinding sound of the growing cyclone, the Leaf genin were surprised to hear a number of thumping sounds, barely audible over the raucous din.

"What is that?" Ino shouted, having trouble hearing in all the noise as she shielded her eyes from the swirling winds.

Shisui's smirk widened even more, and his face showed that he was very proud of himself. "I did some work with Kiba and Akamaru, much like with my other students, as you might be able to tell. While I gave Hinata the ability to keep her opponents on her toes with sudden movement, Kiba already had a number of elements of that in his fighting style, so I had to focus on pure speed and striking power. The result was this," he explained, waving at the cacophony in the middle of the arena.

"I didn't know Kiba was capable of such a powerful attack…" Sasuke noted, impressed despite himself, and both Chōji and Lee nodded in awe.

Thanks to his choice of clothing, Dosu was protected better than most of his fellow competitors, but that still wasn't enough to cushion the sheer volume of blows that were being inflicted on him from all angles. Additionally, his time was being solely occupied by trying to defend, so there was no room for him to counterattack. "Damn it all…" he growled right before he took a rather vicious shot to the face. He shook it off and added, "This is getting extremely tiresome…"

As if someone had granted his wish, the tornado began to slow down, and the thumps faded away, leaving only the whistling of the wind. The two Inuzuka copies began to spiral upwards once more, a much more beaten down Dosu dropped from his sustained hovering and slammed into the ground, groaning slightly and barely moving at all. Still, ever the vigilant, his eye remained locked onto his two opponents.

"Oi, oi, Dosu!" Zaku snapped from his perch on the other platform, "Is that really all you've got? Get up you dumbass!"

"Not so fast," their teacher said silkily from behind the two remaining squad mates, "He'll surprise you two. You'd be wise to watch this…especially you, Abumi." The death obsessed genin shot a nasty glare at his sensei but refrained from snapping back. Kin rolled her eyes and retreated back to the wall; her interest in the fight was very nearly depleted because she was relatively sure of the end result.

Both Kibas twirled around each other as they spun towards the ceiling, and reaching their apex only a few feet from the limit of their space, they abruptly spun back downwards. As they accelerated to the floor, their dual drills merged into a single broad cone, and the sound of the technique, "Tensōga (Heaven Twin Fang)!" echoed through the building as they careened right into the space where Dosu was prone with a loud crash. A number of destroyed tiles flew every which way, and a fine cloud of dust rose at the site of the collision.

"Wow…" Chōji murmured in amazement, somewhat muted by his surprise, "I can't believe how much more powerful Kiba's gotten." By the looks on the faces of the other genin, they couldn't either. Even the normally stoic Sasuke and Neji had raised an eyebrow at this exhibition of pure domination on the part of the Inuzuka youth.

"Imagine what would have happened if Kiba had been allowed to release his abilities on that Sound squad," Lee noted astutely, "They might not have even made it to this stage of the fighting!"

His Hyūga teammate nodded in agreement, but his face showed that he wasn't convinced of a Hidden Leaf victory just yet. "I'm not sure quite yet." The bowlcut-sporting genin turned and looked to see his friend's Byakugan activated and locked on to the point of impact. "There's something odd about that Dosu guy. I noticed it back in the forest, but I still cannot figure out what it is for the life of me."

"What are you talking about?" Tenten asked curiously.

"His body doesn't look like anyone else's here. The general structure is right, but there are some odd blotches shielding each of his limbs and his core that have chakra flowing through them," he explained slowly, not even really trusting his own explanation.

"Like a disease?" Lee inquired.

"No, no, it's definitely something solid, and if I had to guess…foreign to his body." The all-seeing genin's tone was bleeding uncertainty. "I can't honestly say I've seen anything like it in or outside of the village."

The bun haired member of Team Guy raised an eyebrow at that oddly vague description, but some shifting in the impact site caught everyone's attention.

"Wait, what?" Naruto exclaimed in surprise, leaning forward over the rail because he couldn't quite believe his eyes.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow and added, "That's interesting, to say the least."

As expected, there was some groaning and whimpering at the site of impact, but instead of a downed Sound genin, the source of the voice was revealed to be the Inuzuka pair, having dropped out of their transformations due to significant injury. Kiba was cradling his left arm gently, wincing every time it moved, and he also favored his right leg, trying to not put much weight on it. Akamaru was similarly stricken, lying on the ground and not moving either of his two front paws if he could avoid it; they were likely shattered based on the awkward angles in which they were lying, and the low whimper of pain further confirmed that.

Still, the young man wasn't about to give up if he could help it, and to show that, he very carefully and very painfully extracted a kunai from his pouch, brandishing it shakily with his good arm. "I don't know what the hell your body is made of, but I know I can beat you, even with a bad arm and leg!" he hissed through the discomfort. "I'm ready when you are, you freak!"

Dosu had already risen to his feet and was brushing off his clothes, having received little to no damage in his fight, and at this exclamation, his lone visible eyebrow arched slightly in surprise. It was obvious that he had not been expecting his opponent to still be willing to fight as well as not being as damaged as he had expected. "I must give you credit, punk," he replied, "You're not a quitter."

Genma had made to move forward to stop the fight, but seeing the young man's resolve and the brief exhange, he stopped and stood back. Dosu was of like mind, shuffling his long sleeves back. He took a step forward, and the audible hum of chakra on the floor indicated that he was preparing another attack, likely to finish off the stricken youth once and for all. The Inuzuka shuffled slowly in front of his injured puppy and dropped into an improvised defensive stance, baring his weapon before him.

However, it seemed that the fight was over after all, as a form appeared in the midst of the competitors. "I'm stopping this fight right now," Shisui said sternly, teleporting in front of his ailing student, who looked shocked and then angry at his teacher's appearance.

"What are you talking about?" the mummy man asked blankly. "If he still wants to fight, let him fight. I'm not about to rob a man of his pride…"

The eyepatch-sporting jōnin silenced him with a pointed look. "Quiet. Everyone here knows that this was a poor matchup from the start, and I think Kiba's shown plenty here that you were not expecting in the least. There's no need to kick someone while they're down." The indifferent genin shrugged and began to shuffle away, not even waiting for a match announcement

The Inuzuka youth tried to protest, but in his efforts to hurriedly hobble forward, he aggravated both his arm and leg, and the complaint came out as a hiss of pain, effectively silencing him. "You did fine," the elder Uchiha stated truthfully as he walked over and carefully supported him, noting out of the corner of his eyes that a team of medics was hustling across the arena. "Like I said, you were a victim of circumstance more than anything. Don't be discouraged by this. You'll show them next time" Seeing how proud his teacher was of him, even in defeat, the young man finally admitted defeat and allowed the medical team to put him on a stretcher, and they soon carefully placed Akamaru on his stomach. Their job done, the crew quickly but gently carried the two off into the bowels of the tower.

With the match concluded by forfeit, the board flashed back to life as Shisui returned to the platform in a quick flash, where he noted with some amount of happiness that Hinata had roused back to consciousness. Though she still looked exhausted, her face was slightly drawn in worry. "Is he okay?" she asked quickly, rushing up to him as soon as she noticed his return.

"Yeah, he and Akamaru should be fine after a few weeks of rest," he replied, giving her a reassuring smile.

Shino added, "Shisui-sensei was right about luck. But this won't deter Kiba in the least. Why? I know he'll come back with even more ways to counteract this weakness of his."

Knowing the temperament of her canine-loving teammate, the Hyūga heiress lightly rolled her eyes and was going to thank him when an impassioned shout from a couple of meters away surprised both her and many of her classmates.

"IT IS TIME!" Guy bellowed happily, "Neji, I look forward to seeing you fan the flames of your youth most brilliantly in your upcoming match!" Sure enough, the video board had come to a halt, and the next two competitors had been revealed.

**Yamanaka Ino**

**vs.**

**Hyūga Neji**

"No!" Lee exclaimed in disappointment, "When will it be my turn?"

"Patience, my youthful protégé!" Guy boomed in response, "Your time will come soon enough!"

As the banter between the green-clad ninja continued, growing more and more ridiculous and noisy, Neji rolled his eyes in annoyance. Responding to Tenten's nod of encouragement with a grateful one in return, he quickly jumped into the ring to get away from his teammates; close as they were, he still was very easily irritated by their passionate rants about the flames of youth.

Opposite of him stood Ino, who looked rather apprehensive at being stuck with one of the most powerful genin in the village as an opponent. As Genma walked over to stand between the two competitors, the blonde kunoichi flinched as she saw the taijutsu prodigy fall into a similar stance to Hinata in her earlier fight, though in his variety his legs were spread wider, and his arms created a larger arc. "What ever happened to ladies' first?" she asked herself grimly.

Like the previous fights, the bandana-clad jōnin made a simple gesture and said, "Begin!" before retreating.

This fight was actually the first one that didn't immediately erupt into action. Neji appeared to be content to wait on his opponent to act first, though the chakra pathways around his eyes did erupt as he activated his Byakugan, the blank orbs boring into the blonde.

Ino cautiously dropped into a taijutsu stance of her own; her fighting style of choice was a unique mixture of long distance and short distance engagements. As such, whenever she was forced into hand-to-hand combat, she struck hard and fast and used the openings to hit the opponent with her clan's secret techniques. "Well, if he doesn't want to make the first move, I guess I'll have to force the issue, huh?" she murmured to herself.

To begin, she slowly reached down and extracted a fresh red rose from her pouch, surprising a number of people. With a flick of her wrist, it elongated into a lengthy, thorn-encrusted whip that coiled around her legs as she held the base lightly at her side.

"What's that?" Sasuke asked, "I didn't know Ino used a whip or flowers in her fighting style."

"Yeah, I didn't either," Sakura noted with a small amount of ire at her best friend's deception; her inner self began to punch at the air in more overt anger, spluttering all kinds of obscenities.

Shikamaru shrugged apathetically. "You shouldn't be so surprised," he said indifferently, "Most of her clan based abilities are made for long range or team oriented combat, so if she's fighting on her own, she has to find different ways to restrict her opponent's movements. And don't forget, her mother is a distant relative of both the Senju and Flower Ninja clans."

"And we all know how fired up she gets," the younger Sarutobi brother added with a smirk. Everyone nodded in agreement with that, knowing that her spirit could rival even that of the two bowlcut-sporting ninja of Team Guy, especially when there was juicy gossip involved.

A few more moments passed, and Neji continued to appear content to wait on her to do something first. "Are you really just going to stand there the entire match?" she finally asked, "I'm not going to go easy on you."

"Be my guest."

Sighing in increasing frustration, the blonde dashed forward, with the whip trailing behind. As she drew closer to the stoic Hyūga, and he made no motion to react in any way, she snapped her wrist, and the thorny vine slashed forward in an unpredictable pattern but generally sweeping from right to left.

Neji's enhanced vision allowed him to act swiftly and accurately, though his initial move puzzled some. He bared his left forearm at the rapidly approaching rope, but it deflected away at the last second, as if some unseen shield had appeared. Upon impact, a small cloud of pollen erupted from a few of the thorns, and a small bit of the end of the plant splintered, but Neji didn't seem it any mind as his eyes followed the path of the weapon.

Ino noticed this but was undeterred, again subtly shifting the position of her arm. As she spun around, passing by her opponent, the whip came flying back at a different angle, this time to cut his feet out from under him. This was easier to avoid, and he nimbly leapt over the slash.

The blonde grinned, seemingly having lured her prey into her trap. Another slight movement of her wrist, and the whip changed directly abruptly and sprung up, driving straight for a male's most sensitive area. Even the stoic Neji couldn't resist the look of horror that crossed his face, and almost more out of instinct than controlled reaction, he began to spin, and the spherical chakra shell of the Hakkeshō Kaiten erupted around his body to protect the Hyūga family jewels. Like before, when the whip struck a chakra based barrier, it fractured into splinters, sending thorns flying around the arena and a much larger cloud of pollen into the air.

Ino was left with only a short remnant of her weapon, and as Neji dispersed his shield and fell back to the ground amidst the rose fragments, the blonde beauty quickly chucked the stump at his face. It was nothing for him to slap it away, and he did note that the chakra-laced strike reduced the stalk into more pollen and thorns, but his attention was focused more on the follow up.

"Let's see how you like two of them!" the Yamanaka woman snapped, swinging downwards with two more rosy vines from only a few feet away; she had used the brief distraction to create two more weapons, and they were now crossing downwards in an X-shaped pattern.

As he had before, Neji reacted quickly to the new challenge, and he managed to leap backwards and avoid most of the slashes, though he did receive some cuts on his torso and legs. Ino didn't let up, as she brought both whips back up after they slammed into the floor and began a dangerous dance with her opponent. She was doing an admirable job keeping the talented Hyūga solely on the defensive, and her skill with the vines was impressive, swirling them in complicated attack patterns and contorting her body to maximize damage and minimize self-harm.

The first real exchange showed the young man that these were much stronger and more resilient than their predecessors; his attempt to destroy a portion like he had previously only resulted in a number of light puncture wounds to his hands. "You've got to be kidding me…you fortified them with chakra this time?" he growled slightly in annoyance, and he continued to dodge and deflect Ino's oncoming attacks.

"Sorry, but I'm not going to just sit down and let you beat me," the blonde wittily retorted, keeping up the offensive.

"Come on Neji!" Lee shouted in encouragement, "You can do it!"

"Show them the power of your youth, my wonderful student!" Guy added in his booming baritones.

Rolling his eyes with a slight smile as he kept on the defensive in his frantic escape of the plants' relentless onslaught, Neji began to supercharge his hands with chakra. It was somewhat detrimental to his chakra supply, but he could think of no other way to get rid of the weapons. When an opening finally appeared, he grasped both of the plants, not caring about any hand wounds that he received, and forcefully injected a massive amount of chakra into both vines.

For a moment, it appeared that he hadn't done anything at all. Ino had been somewhat shocked at his choice of attacks, but she was emboldened at how well the fortification of her weapons had worked, and she began to yank on her plants to regain control of them and inflict further damage.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the best thing to do because the whips had actually been weakened significantly, and even the small amount of force behind her tug was enough to reduce the weapons to scattered thorns, petals, and pollen. In her surprise, the blond stumbled back a few feet before regaining her balance, and Neji shook his hands briefly to get rid of the small amount of bleeding and thorns embedded in his palms.

"I'm not really sure what that was good for," Naruto grumbled, "All she did was get him angry." As he leaned over the railing, he grimaced at the mess that Ino's attacks had left all over the floor and sneezed at the pollen in the air, "And now…achoo…I can't hardly breathe! She's just wasting her chakra, right?"

Interestingly enough, Kakashi seemed equally confused. "To be fair, she may have been testing the waters because she knows about Neji's abilities, but creating three of those whips and strengthening two of them with enough chakra to resist normal Jūken strikes had to be costly to her overall energy supply." Indeed, even though she was still standing, the Yamanaka youth was breathing quite hard. Despite that, her face indicated that she wanted to continue as she wiped some sweat from her brow.

The older genin waved his hand to disperse some of the pollen and eyed the rose fragments lying around his feet with a small amount of contempt. "No offense, but all that seemed to achieve was burning through a lot of your energy," he stated, echoing Kakashi's previous assessment. "Is the charade over?"

Despite her apparent exhaustion, Ino smirked. "I don't know what charade you're talking about, but I'm just getting started." She dropped to one knee and formed a lone handseal. "Let's see how you like this…Ibara Hyōji (Thorny Bush Peril Temple)!" she murmured, lightly tapping the floor.

A few seconds ticked by, and yet nothing really happened. The genin and jōnin who were observing the fight were just as confused as the Hyūga prodigy, and a light buzz began to run through the upper platforms as seconds turned to hours, and there was nothing to show for the efforts of the female competitor.

"Really?" Neji asked skeptically after the sustained lack of any type of attack, "You're beginning to waste my time with your ineptitude."

Guy's eyes twitched slightly at the speech pattern of his student, but he didn't say anything, though his mouth imperceptibly drew tighter. On the other end, Hiashi was much the same, having never heard his nephew speak in such a manner before.

Neji's white eyes scanned the floor and area around him, but all he could sense was the residual chakra from Ino's previous attack still present in the fragments of rose scattered around him. He then focused back on the blonde's face, and he couldn't deny that he was somewhat enraged by how smug and confident she still looked. "Have it your way," he muttered before taking a step forward towards her.

A number of things happened at that exact moment. A truly evil feeling began to course through his veins, latching onto the various negative thoughts that had been floating around for the past few minutes and amplifying them. He was only allowed a brief moment of confusion before a head splitting pain erupted in his frontal lobe. As he began to wince and grab his head, grunting slightly at the sudden attack from out of nowhere, he was able to discern two things through the haze in his mind. First, this pain was extremely similar to that of the Caged Bird Seal, and second, his limbs had suddenly become extremely sluggish, and his movements were no longer coordinated or smooth.

All of the factors suddenly clocked in this mind, and he realized what the problem was. Remembering back to what his uncle and the Hokage had said the previous night, he realized that this was Orochimaru's foul mark activating. As he forced his head to look down, he could see the flame-like pattern streaming down his left arm, and by the gasps and murmurs in the crowd, he could only assume that it was visible elsewhere.

The seal that had been used was not a permanent fix to the overall issue; it required a great deal of willpower from the afflicted to keep the evil chakra in check. Something that would isolate it completely would be successful in locking it away forever, but it might also prevent complete removal at a later time if and when they found a cure or reversal technique. Adding to the problem was the fact that now both of the cursed seals on his body reacted as one, so he could hardly think because of the searing pain in his head.

Additionally, Ino's trap finally sprung when the older boy made an overt movement into the thorns, and each small piece of rose exploded in size, lengthening and sharpening into lethal spikes. They ranged anywhere from five to seven feet long, and like the flower from which they originated, they were covered in smaller spines of their own. The technique wasn't designed to be deadly unless the user desired, so the damage that the Hyūga prodigy received was mostly superficial, though one did embed somewhat deeply into his right shoulder, and another created a decent slash on his left leg.

With her two-step trap of pollen paralysis and thorn deception complete, Ino switched her hands into the familiar position of her clan's secret techniques. Chalking up her opponent's distress to the pain from her spiny sneak attack, she grinned confidently and said, "How's that for a charade, huh? I think you need to pay for that…by forfeiting the match! Shintenshin no Jutsu (Mind Body Transfer Technique)!" Her body went limp as her spirit left to inhabit the body of her opponent, and for a moment, it seemed like she would get her victory after all. The Hyūga youth's eyes unfocused slightly before his face erupted in a smirk, and his uninjured arm began to rise as the body snatcher began to speak, "I, Hyūga Neji, wish to for…" Her speech slowed dramatically as her chakra and soul integrated with her opponent completely, and she went completely silent for a few moments.

Genma moved forward and asked, "You wish to…?" He received no response, and his eyebrow shifted up as his toothpick shifted around in his mouth.

"What's going on?" Kushina asked in confusion, "Why did she just stop?" She received no response from either her husband or Hiashi, as both were observing the scene with drawn faces and tight lips. The redhead walked forward and put an arm on the Hokage's arm, but in a very uncharacteristic manner, he shook his head and shot her a look that indicated that he would explain later.

Suddenly, Neji's body screamed in pain, and his arms began to grasp at it. A moment later, Ino was ejected from it back into her body with a scream of pain. Such was the brute force behind the rejection that her real body even skid backwards a couple of feet as her spirit returned, and she lay on the ground, trembling and looking at her opponent in abject horror. "Wh-wh-what in the world was that?" she stammered, her wide, startled eyes quivering as she looked at her opponent, "Wh-wh-who is that inside of him?"

"What's she talking about?" Shikamaru asked, looking interested in the fight all of the sudden. He looked towards his teacher and added, "Hey, sensei, what's going on?"

His answer was pure silence, as the younger Sarutobi brother watched the fight with an unreadable expression. His Nara student was somewhat surprised at the lack of a verbal response and pushed him further, "You know something don't you?"

"Not now. There are too many prying ears around." His normally jovial expression was unusually hard, and his eyes were darting around.

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "Does this involve sensitive information," he inquired slowly, giving Neji a closer look from his perch.

"You could say that," was the short answer he received, and the Nara youth didn't pursue the issue further, though his interest most certainly was piqued.

The foul chakra from Orochimaru actually seemed to be disrupted by Ino's sudden intrusion, and the moment she was ejected from his body, his grunts began to calm down, his head began to clear, and he carefully fell down to a knee as well, avoiding the thorns. The marks staining much of his upper body slowly receded back to his shoulder, where the foul mark resided. When they disappeared for good, the young man sighed heavily in relief, finally back with a fully clear mind. Unfortunately, the activation of the Snake Sannin's seal also had the added effect of disrupting the pollen paralysis technique that the Yamanaka heir had previously used, and as such he was able to move his limbs more freely.

After a moment's rest, Neji charged his good hand with chakra and slashed at the nearest plants, destroying enough of the improvised cage to leap out and land in front of it. It was obvious his movements were still somewhat encumbered by the paralysis, but he could move well enough to fight further.

…or he would have, if Ino hadn't quickly retreated, backpedaling away to near Genma's current location. She looked up at him, her eyes still wide in shock, and said simply, "I forfeit! There's no way I'm going back in there again!" before scrambling to her feet and dashing back towards the Leaf platform.

The bandana-wearing jōnin's face was rather neutral, as if he couldn't decide what he thought about that, but as was his duty, he announced that Neji was the victor and waved him away, back to the spectators' area. The victor of the match looked more happy than confused at the end result because of how sore both his body and mind were, and he gingerly began to make his way over to the staircase.

However, before the youth could get very far, another team of five medics emerged from the tunnel. "We need you to come with us, Master Hyūga," the lead doctor said in a forceful tone.

The stoic young man raised an eyebrow, even as he flinched slightly from the residual pain, and quickly retorted, "Why?" He nodded towards his minor injuries and added, "These aren't that bad. I can bandage them up myself, and I'll be good as new in no time."

"Orders from above, sir."

Sighing in resignation, he nodded reluctantly and allowed the team to lead him out of the arena. This led him directly under the platform where the dignitaries and council members were standing, and he glanced up at them. His uncle gave him an indiscernible look, and he noticed the Hokage's eyes shooting back and forth between both platforms, though he didn't have the faintest idea why.

As he entered the tunnel leading back to the examination areas, he could faintly hear the selection board spring back to life, but he wasn't really worried about that at the moment. The team of five guided him up a few flights of winding staircases, and by the time they exited the tight column, he estimated that they were near the top of the towering forest structure, above even the gathering and living spaces.

The leader of the group walked up to a door and pressed his chakra-laced hand to a pad next to it, causing the portal to spring open. "Please wait in here, sir," he said, turning around briefly to address the youth as he gestured inside, "A doctor will be with you shortly." Neji did think this was somewhat odd (wasn't this a team of doctors standing before him?) but he really wasn't in the mood to get in an argument, so he did as they said and entered the dark and gloomy hall.

Almost immediately, he knew something wasn't right. The moment he cleared the doors, Neji wheeled around to see the smirking faces of the five medics before they slammed the doors shut behind him, leaving the young man in complete darkness. He pounded repeatedly on the heavy steel, yelling for them to let him out but he knew it wouldn't do any good. "Now what am I supposed to do?" he mused angrily.

"What's with that tone? You sound so angry…"

The familiar, silky voice that emerged from the darkness shook Neji to his core, and yet he couldn't stop his body from turning around to face the new party. He couldn't see much of anything, and his eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the dim level of light in the room, but his ears picked up the slow, faint tapping of footsteps, and his vision locked on to the direction from which they were coming.

Slowly, a very familiar figure came into view. The cream colored clothes, purple rope belt, and long black hair were the same as the encounter in the forest a few days prior, but all of the injuries inflicted onto the imposter going by the name Shiore had completely disappeared, and the fake face was gone as well, revealing slit yellow eyes surrounded by purple marks. The look on the face was still the same, a nasty mixture of greed, wisdom, and power, and those eyes viewed his victim in anxious interest. "Hyūga Neji, at last we have an opportunity to talk, one on one, face to face," Orochimaru hissed in thinly veiled pleasure.

Despite the fear threatening to bubble over internally, the prodigy kept a stoic face and retorted bitterly, "I've been looking forward to this as well. I can't wait to turn your face inside out for what you did to me."

The serpent's expression took on a look of false surprise. "Whatever do you mean? I didn't do anything to you that you didn't want."

"Bullshit," the youth spat out in a very un-Hyūga manner, "I never asked for this seal!"

"But you want power, no?" the legendary criminal queried, and Neji halt for a moment as he considered that statement. No doubt, the effect of the Caged Bird Seal being integrated into the newer formula was all the incentive that he needed to never use it, but his brain couldn't help but linger on the power that he felt during the two brief times that it activated. It felt…good…really good. Unlike anything he had ever felt before…powerful enough to do some serious housecleaning within his own clan to rid it of the rotten eggs still stubbornly clinging to traditions of times long past…

"No." His pride as a member of the proudest clan in the Hidden Leaf Village kicked in, as well as his training. "Power is nothing if it comes with a cost that may affect those around me. Even just now, I could have seriously hurt my opponent if she hadn't forfeited first. I don't want something that I haven't earned through hard work and dedication, and I sure as hell don't want something that could be just as harmful as helpful."

For just a moment, Orochimaru looked impressed despite himself, but he quickly concealed that under a mask of indifference. His eyes drifted to a point over his victim's shoulder, and he purred, "Is that the answer you were hoping for?"

A hand clapped down on Neji's good shoulder, and the startled young man whirled around and saw his teacher looking down at him with a slight grin of pride on his face. "Guy-sensei…"

"Go ahead, get out of here," Kakashi said from nearby, his revealed Sharingan whirling as his hand began to crackle with electricity. "We'll handle things from here. The medical bay is a floor down from here." The genin didn't need to be told twice, and he quickly made his way to the doors, which were now unlocked, and slipped out of the room.

"Hatake Kakashi and Might Guy," the Sannin hissed in delight as the portal sealed once more, "What a pleasure it is to see you again…"

"I wish I could say likewise…" the masked jōnin muttered back, and he held up his hand, which was now shimmering with jagged bolts of electricity, "…but we can't have you running around the village any longer."

"Especially after what you did to my precious student." Guy's face was frighteningly hard, and Orochimaru was acutely aware of the fact that he had hit a nerve, trying to inflict possibly irreparable harm on one of his pupils, "We're not going to let you leave his room alive." His skin began to hiss, and even in the faint light, red vapor could be seen emitting from his pores.

The rogue grinned in anticipation, and both jōnin couldn't help but flinch as one of the long arms of the Sannin began to rise towards his face. "That's quite the statement, gentlemen, but unfortunately for you…I have places to be and things to do." His index finger tugged at his lower eyelid, and out of nowhere, the two instructors were blasted with a wave of killing intent, strong enough to bring even those two battle-hardened veterans to their knees. It also had the added effects of cancelling the preparation of their techniques and creating enough time to allow a quick escape.

As the villain's body shimmered away, his fading voice echoed through the hall, "Don't worry…I'm not planning on leaving the village quite yet…just you wait and see…"

…xXx…

The fists of two weary and beat up ninja collided with the faces of their opponent, and both stumbled backwards a few feet before collapsing onto their behinds. Shino and Hisen were breathing heavily; as both were still nursing injuries from their time in the Forest of Death, neither were at peak fighting condition, and as such, their match had consisted of mostly generic hand to hand combat instead of more chakra intensive techniques.

Their bodies finally gave out on them, and both fell in unison to the floor, Shino on his back and Hisen on his stomach. While not unconscious, it was obvious that neither were in any condition to continue fighting. "Seeing as both combatants are unable to fight, this match will be declared a draw!" Genma announced.

As another medic team came sprinting out of the tunnel to tend to the two injured genin, Kakashi and Guy silently phased back into the arena, and they noted to their satisfaction that no one appeared to notice that they had disappeared for a few minutes.

Neji also reappeared, dodging the stretchers and anxious doctors that were transporting the two exhausted competitors into the tower, and everyone could see that his shoulder had been bandaged and his shin stitched up. The board lit back up as he carefully walked up to where everyone else was standing, and because he was coming from the direction of the center of the tower, he had to walk by Ino and her team to reach his own. Chōji had a distinctly sour look on his face, which was extremely uncharacteristic for him, and even Shikamaru looked like he wasn't all that pleased with the situation. Keisei wasn't angry because he had been let in on the taboo topic, but he still didn't look too happy either for the sake of his pupil.

The blonde unsuccessfully tried to not shrink away behind her larger teammate as the older genin approached their group, but he surprised all of them by stopping, prompting the lazy Nara to mutter with an edge, "Can we help you?"

"I just wanted…to apologize to Ino…" Neji replied stiffly; it was obvious this was something that he wasn't used to doing, "What happened was out of my control, and I want her to know that if that fight had occurred any time other that today, it would not have ended in such an unfortunate manner."

"Easy for you to say," the blonde spat out, emerging from the shadow of the burly Akimichi and getting up in the Hyūga youth's face, "Do you even know what kind of stuff is floating around inside your head?"

"Yes, I am quite aware of it…" he replied, trying to reign in a retort because she couldn't have any knowledge of his issue, "…and like I said, it's something that is entirely out of my control. Steps have been taken to prevent something like this from happening, but they are not a cure, just a stopgap. I am truly sorry that you had to be a victim of something that is entirely my burden to carry."

Ino's expression was now unreadable, and the prodigy could almost detect a hint of pity that could only come from her intimate, firsthand understanding of the situation. "He's right," Keisei said softly, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder and causing her to look up at him. "I know you're upset about what happened, and I am too, as is Neji. But it isn't something he can help; it was something that was forced on him without any warning or consideration, and we should be supportive, not combative." He glanced down at Guy's pupil. "Go ahead. No hard feelings."

As the prodigy shuffled away, Team 10's leader could feel a pair of eyes boring into the side of his head, and he turned to look at Shikamaru, his expression inviting him to ask a question. "Care to elaborate _now_, sensei?" he drawled out.

"The answer's still no…" The lazy genin followed his teacher's eyes as they drifted over and landed on the dignitary platform before they swiveled back and locked on to him. "…but knowing you, I'm guessing you'll figure it out eventually." The spiky-haired youth's expression remained quizzical but he didn't pursue the topic further.

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! Forgive me for the awkward ending but I wanted to stop the constant barrage of cliffhangers. I can imagine that gets old fast.

We still have Sasuke, Sakura, Chōji, Lee, Tenten, Kabuto, all three Sand siblings, Zaku, Fū, and Tarumi left to go, and let me assure you that some of those will be much quicker than these fights. Some will be longer out of necessity, but others will be similar to Temari v. Tenten (and no, that isn't one of the matchups). Actually, speaking of which, of all of the Chūnin exam matches, exactly one is the same as canon, and it will not be appearing in this round. See if you can guess which one it is!

**Review Responses:**

**windwarrior234: **Thank you. I kept saying, just wait until the Chūnin Exam fights, but some people are just so darn persistent and impatient

**Rose Tiger: **It'll still be some time. There are some awkward times still to come, but if you want a general idea, I think there will be an understanding of sorts by the time of the canon timeskip. Hopefully. Maybe. If all goes well. Possibly. #indecision

**zigmas: **What was weird?


	18. (Chūnin Exams 10) Chapter 17

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** "Akamaru" turned out to be a ploy, as the Shadow Clone exploded and the Inuzuka duo began to energetically attack once more. Unleashing a multitude of variations of the clan's taijutsu against the armored ninja, it appeared that they had the upper hand against the mysterious Sound genin. Unfortunately, Dosu emerged as the victor due to some kind of shielding or armor that Neji was able to see using his Byakugan. Speaking of which, the next match pitted the older Hyūga genin against Ino. Surprisingly, it was the young lady who came out swinging with plant-based whips and a number of hidden traps. Neji was able to sufficiently destroy them, but he slowly became annoyed at the roundabout and continued weak strikes. As he finally prepared to make his move, his pent up anger resulted in the accidental activation of Orochimaru's curse seal, right as Ino entered his mind. Fortunately, her chakra forced a rejection of both her spirit and the curse seal's influence, and as the mark receded, the young woman forfeited immediately. Medics took Neji to be examined, but that led to a forced encounter with Orochimaru himself. Luckily, that was interrupted by Kakashi and Guy, though the rogue managed to escape.

**AN:** I'm writing this before the chapter, but I think that we'll burn through four battles in this one, and finish this stage in the next chapter with the last three. As such, both Chapter 17 and 18 will probably be a little longer than usual just to wrap this all up because I know I'm getting tired of repetitive battles. There will be some fun social activities and training and expository stuff soon, don't worry!

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 17 – Foreign Powers Shine! The Power of Waterfall, Sand, Sound, and Grass!**

The video board lit back up, and as the remaining names flashed across the screen, Minato exchanged a quick glance with his student to find out what had happened. Kakashi gave him a hard look but shook his head slightly, and the Hokage sighed in resignation, though he admittedly wasn't expecting much. He then shifted his gaze towards Guy and could barely detect a strained sense of defeat and annoyance in the expression of the outwardly jolly and energetic jōnin. Judging by how Tenten and Lee were behaving, they didn't suspect a thing, which was probably good given the circumstances, though Neji's expression was somewhat sour.

The village leader felt a tap on his shoulder, and turning around, he saw the two elders of the clan council standing there, looking mildly displeased. "Is this going to be an issue moving forward?" Koharu asked in a peevish tone.

"As far as I'm aware, there won't be any further problems," Minato replied slowly, "I can only guess that Orochimaru's continued presence in the area is having an adverse effect on the curse seal, and there is only so much I can do here and with the personnel to which I am limited."

"My nephew is not one to get riled up like that without a fair reason," Hiashi added, joining the conversation, "He cannot help that foreign chakra is causing him significant distress in the course of battle."

The elders both turned their gaze to him, and Homura's mouth twitched downwards. "Are you sure that your opinion isn't clouded by the somewhat unstable condition of your clan over these past few years?"

"Yes, yes," the female elder latched on and continued, "Who's to say that Neji's issues aren't more fundamental? It's perfectly possible that he is yet another casualty of a flawed and outdated system that is long due for replacement or eradication by the leader of the Hyūga clan, is it not?"

That was most definitely not the right thing to say, as Hiashi's eyes flared to life, and he would likely have lunged at the two if not for his blonde friend stepping between them. "You know perfectly well how much I abhor the use of that brand, and I have done more than any of my predecessors in working towards eliminating that tainted tradition. You have no right to judge what is right or wrong in our family when you lack the knowledge of what is occurring behind the scenes," he hissed, having the foresight to lower his tone as to not draw attention to himself.

"We do if we believe it to be detrimental to the overall welfare of the village, especially considering recent events and circumstances," Homura shot back, "And this is a matter we will be investigating further."

The Hyūga clan leader's face was uncharacteristically livid, but luckily Minato stepped in and shut the conversation down. "That's enough, all of you," he said sternly. He focused his attention on the two elders and gave them a dressing down, "Do not forget that the council is only part of the power structure of this village. This is neither the time nor place for this discussion, and there will be problems if you pursue this topic further outside of an official meeting. Understand?"

While the Third Hokage's teammates both looked like they did want to continue the conversation further, they somewhat wilted under the stern gaze of the current leader and backed off. The blonde turned and nodded briefly to the angry father and uncle, who took a breath to clear his mind, and they refocused their attention on the fights at hand.

The next two competitors had already been announced, and as they made their way to the floor, their names could be seen on the board.

**Karin**

**vs.**

**Kin Tsuchi**

The lone female amongst the Sound genin reached the floor and stood there, looking distinctly bored and uninterested in participating in the match. Moments later, the lone remaining member of the Hidden Grass squad arrived and stood a few feet away, giving the long haired vixen a disapproving look. "You'd think I'd get matched up with one of the guys that haven't fought yet…" she groaned, "…but no…I get stuck with you instead." Her crimson eyes swept the platforms, stopping momentarily to give Sasuke and Kankurō thinly veiled lecherous looks, before coming to rest on her opponent, and it was very obvious that she didn't think much of her. "Good grief…" she added softly.

"Keep talking, bitch," Kin spat back, pulling her arms back into her sleeves, "You aren't anything to get excited about, either."

"Who are you calling a bitch?" Karin retorted, putting one hand on her hip and pointing a finger of the other at the longhaired genin. "You're a hussy if I've ever seen one. The Sound Village must be a pretty bland place if you're the best that they could send to represent them. Bet you've never had a boyfriend, if you even like guys!"

"You'd better not be saying what I think you're trying to say!" the normally dull Sound genin was rapidly growing angry, her face beginning to flush a deeper shade of red every second.

"Oh I most definitely am. You flat-chested brute!"

"You have a lot of room to talk! Chubby legged chimp!"

"Hairy whore!"

"Bloody tomato!"

"Pug-faced prude!"

"Sleazy slut!"

"Woah, woah, woah, calm down, ladies," Genma said in a placating tone, approaching them and gesturing for them to hold off for a moment. "The fight hasn't even started yet. Save it for the match, okay?"

"Well, what's the holdup?" the redhead spat back. "You've just been standing there, listening the whole time. You getting off on this or what?" Kin looked just as anxious to start as well, and both genin glared at the proctor as the seconds ticked by.

The bandana-sporting jōnin managed to keep his expression neutral at the Grass kunoichi's suggestion but finally just sighed in resignation and waved his hand. He was wisely to jump out of the way, as both females jumped right at or possibly even a little before the indication to begin.

Karin was much more wild to start the match, her fists and arms flying in mostly ordinary punches and lunges. Her taijutsu style was less refined and more improvisational, though if one were to look carefully, there was an undercurrent of a method to her apparent madness. To an outsider, her legs appeared to be mostly ignored in the fighting style and used for stabilization only, but the keen eyes of Lee and Guy caught the ruse. Every now and then, she would abruptly launch powerful kicks that Kin had to dodge to avoid serious cranial damage.

Still, despite the admittedly rough style, her aggression and anger fueled the charge, and as such, the young redhead was easily able to keep her opponent on her toes. "Wow!" she barked, throwing punch after punch after punch, "I was hoping to at least break a sweat, but this is straight pathetic! How did you get this far in the competition?"

"Keep it up, you bitch," Kin seethed under her breath, "I'm just waiting for you to mess up…" She tried to put on a good face, but in all honesty, she couldn't spare any of her concentration to even consider a counterattack. She was doing everything she possibly could to just keep up with the flurry of incoming attacks, and her normal means of incapacitating opponents took more time to set up than she could afford.

Karin remained on the offensive, and her energy seemed near limitless as the persistent young woman kept pushing the longhaired Sound genin closer and closer to the wall. "Uh oh…" the redhead sang happily as she noticed this, "You're running out of real estate…"

Of course, Kin was very much aware of this unfortunate fact, but she really had no way to rectify the problem at hand if she couldn't get free of her opponent's assault. Inch by inch, the combative dance edged closer to the wall of the arena, and the grin on Karin's face grew wider.

"Kin, what are you doing?" Zaku shouted down to his teammate, "Are you trying to lose and make us look bad?" His face was plastered with a nasty frown, and he turned to the other two Sound ninja present to see what their reaction was to the poor performance of their teammate. He was somewhat disappointed that neither seemed worried or concerned in the least, and in fact, their jōnin sensei gave him another glare that silenced the outspoken genin on the spot.

Finally, Kin's heel scraped against the gray concrete of the arena wall, stopping her retreat any further. If it was even possible, Karin's grin widened even more, and with a triumphant shout of "Game over!" she thrust forward towards her opponent's upper body with her hands, both of which bore kunai.

The Sound genin did the only thing she could and ducked down to avoid the scissoring swipes of the blades, though around a foot of her hair fell victim to the attack. The deceptive speed of her opponent combined with the fluttering of the now unbound raven strands startled Karin, and that gave Kin just enough time to angrily kick her in the gut. The redhead stumbled back a few feet, and as her head flew up to assess the situation, a fist collided solidly with her cheek, and this time, she fell back onto her behind, clearly dazed.

The taller ninja stood over her opponent, glaring down at her darkly. "I was going to finish this off quickly, but you've really begun to piss me off," she hissed. She extracted four kunai from her pouch, each having a single bell attached to the blade via a short string. With a few quick flicks of her wrists, she sent the weapons towards each of the downed genin's limbs, and Karin yelped in pain as they pierced her flesh. "I'm going to make sure I enjoy this," the Sound kunoichi added as she flashed through a string of hand seals before ending on the "tiger" sign.

Hinata instinctively flinched. Though the tone was slightly different than the previous usage, the keen senses of the Hyūga heiress recognized the similarities in the genjutsu emanating from the bells. She tried to slowly creep back from the ledge, but the level tone of her cousin's voice stopped her. "What's wrong?" he asked, walking over to her and giving her a veiled look of concern.

She tried to give the elder Hyūga a dismissive smile, but his worried expression prevented that from working, so she sighed and replied, "This genjutsu that she's using is one that they used on us in the Forest of Death. These Sound ninja and their abilities…sometimes it seems like they are so much more dominant compared to us, doesn't it?"

Neji nodded in quiet contemplation. "Normally I would say that you're overreacting, but given our experiences with them over the past few days, I have to agree with you. There's something unnatural about how powerful their "genin" are, especially given that the Hidden Sound Village is supposed to be a relatively new shinobi outpost." The jōnin scattered around the conversation shared discreet glances but chose not to say anything in the presence of their charges.

Karin's body slowly rose until she was standing upright, albeit in a slouched position, almost like she was half asleep. Her eyes clearly indicated that she was fully awake, but the sluggish movement of her impaled limbs seemed to show otherwise. Every time she twitched, and one of the bells rung out, the redhead's movement froze momentarily as the paralytic illusion renewed its hold on its victim's body.

Kin's face was contorted into a nasty grin. "Well, well, well. Bet you weren't expecting this, were you?" Her hand snaked around and grabbed hold of her newly shorn hair, and she appraised it blandly. "To be fair, I was pretty long due for a haircut, but I was hoping to have some kind of choice in the matter." Still clutching the strands, her coal black eyes slowly shifted to Karin, and she walked over until her nose was nearly touching that of her opponent.

"Like a rat in a trap, you ugly bitch." She began to circle the ensnared young woman slowly, her eyes never moving from her target. "This is one of my favorite genjutsu. Would you like to know why?" The taller genin's fist lashed out and hammered Karin's side, right around her kidney, and the redhead cried out in pain. "It's a paralysis technique, but it doesn't rob the victim of any sense of consciousness." Kin's leg lashed out and nailed a thigh, eliciting another squeal. "As long as you don't pass out from the pain, I can keep beating on you until someone stops me." An elbow to the back, and another grunt. "However…I'd be more than happy to stop, if you just give up…" This time, a heeled foot slammed down on a more unprotected foot, with a gasp of pain to accompany it. "So…what do you say?" The slightly less longhaired genin had come back around and was now back in Karin's face, waiting for an answer as she stood only a few centimeters away from her opponent.

The redhead's eyes regarded Kin with a hint of thinly veiled anger, and the Sound kunoichi's expression clearly showed that she seemed to think that she was the victor.

That is, until Karin's head smashed into her nose, and she screamed in pain as she staggered backwards. The Grass ninja unceremoniously yanked the kunai out of her palms and feet, no longer trying to hide that she wasn't in that much pain nor was she paralyzed, and threw them to the side. As the now useless weapons clattered out of reach, her next move was to slam her fist into the unsuspecting face of her opponent, and this time, there wasn't a peep as the Sound genin crumpled in an unconscious pile. "Next time, you should make sure that your genjutsu actually has an effect on someone before using it," she muttered to the loser. Then, in a move that surprised a number of people, she lifted her arm and chomped down on it with her mouth, and the four puncture wounds around her body began to hiss as they quickly resealed.

Up on the dignitary platform, Kushina's eyes widened as a number of factors and observations began to coalesce in her mind. "It can't be…Kanae…?"

Minato's ears caught wind of his beloved's voice, and he turned around to see the older redhead looking like a mix of surprised and confused. "What is it?" he asked softly.

She didn't respond immediately, so the blonde repeated the question. The only answer he received was a brief shake of the head, so the Hokage dropped it for the time being, though he couldn't help but be worried about the odd expression that his wife was sporting.

Karin's head swiveled towards Genma, who was checking on the downed Kin, and asked, "Am I done?" With his nod, she huffed in annoyance and made her way back to the foreign ninja platform, passing the medical unit on her way there.

"That girl's got some moves," Sasuke observed, sounding impressed despite himself, "She completely played that Sound girl out of a victory."

"Sounds like you have a crush on her," Naruto stated pointedly, and for that, the blonde received a nasty glare that didn't quite match the young man's expression. Sakura, standing next to them, remained quiet for the most part, though Kakashi could tell that the simple statement had rattled her a little bit.

"Is it that odd that I appreciate good skill when I see it, you moron?" the young Uchiha shot back half-heartedly.

"Appreciate, admire, _love_, same difference," the prankster muttered under his breath, pointedly looking the other way as he received another glare while grinning like a fox.

Meanwhile, the floor had already been cleared, the next match popped up onto the screen.

**Temari**

**vs.**

**Kanchū Tarumi**

"Woohoo!" Fū shouted enthusiastically, "Go get 'em, brother!"

"Geez, sis, calm down." Tarumi recoiled at the loud voice, though he was still slicked back his hair unnecessarily and grinned at the encouragement. Giving his sister a brief thumbs up, he vaulted over the railing into the pit. A few yards down, Temari did the same after receiving muted nods of encouragement from her siblings, the equivalent of a Rock Lee or Might Guy-level cheer from them.

"You're good to go. Have at it," Genma said softly once both had lined up in front of him, and as usual, he backed off to get free of the combatants. The quad-pigtailed kunoichi immediately reached behind her back and pulled her fan in front of her body as an added layer of defense, though she kept it folded as she regarded her opponent.

She flinched slightly when Tarumi turned his head slightly and regarded the leader of the Hidden Leaf Village. "Lord Hokage, if you don't mind me asking, how vital is the plumbing of this building to the operation of the overall facility?"

Minato definitely looked confused, as did a number of the other dignitaries and observers, but he quickly responded with, "Well, I'd prefer to keep it intact, but I figure it can be patched by one of the jōnin if necessary…" He trailed off once he noticed that the elder Waterfall genin was already moving to make his first move. Surprisingly, he began to form a string of handseals, but unlike many of the competitors, the young man proceeded in a very slow and deliberate manner, not seemingly worrying about getting in any sort of hurry.

"What are you up to?" Temari asked in a challenging tone, though her smile was bordering on flirtatious.

"You'll see soon, gorgeous," Tarumi replied in just as much of, if not more, a flirtatious tone as his opponent. "I'm not telling you to not attack me. I can handle anything you throw at me."

"Well, if that's an invitation, I'm not going to turn it down!" With that, the blonde Sand genin charged at her Waterfall equal, with her fan trailing her in her grasp. With strength that surprised many of her non-relatives, she swung the hefty metal pseudo-staff in a sweeping arc across her body.

A loud "clang" reverberated through the arena, and Temari was shocked that her fan bounced back. Even more surprising was that her opponent not only didn't seemed fazed by the strong charge but also that his hands had continued to weave seals. "You like the arm guards?" Tarumi asked with a sly smile, "My parents suggested them to me after they realized that my fighting style was somewhat slow and deliberate. My arms aren't that scrawny either."

"What are those things made out of?" Temari griped, taking a moment to shake her hands, as they had been somewhat stunned by the unexpected impediment.

"Just a special variety of steel manufactured by the blacksmiths of the Waterfall Village," the longhaired genin replied glibly, continuing to form his handseals. "We've got some of the best water saws in all the land, so we've adapted to create metals that can withstand even our best tools.

"Well, then, forgive me if I test them out further!" The Sand kunoichi renewed her charge, this time adding a technique to her assault with a shout of "Antei Shutoku (Stability Hand Supervision)!" There was no noticeable change in either her hold or the weapon itself, but as she resumed trying to gain an opening in her opponent's defense, it was obvious that she wasn't sustaining the vibrational shock that had occurred when metal clashed with metal in the initial charge.

All the while, Tarumi didn't cease his continued formation of handseals, and it quickly became apparent that Temari wasn't getting anywhere with her assault. The blonde tried a number of different approaches at her opponent, but he was able to deflect or outright dodge her strikes with extremely fluid footwork and subtle shifting of his arms. The Waterfall genin appeared to be well prepared to handle such a relentless assault, and it was obvious that he had plentiful experience in preparing for this. After a couple of engagements, the Sand kunoichi backed off to catch her breath.

At the same time, the male jinchūriki sibling finally came to a halt in his long, long, long string of signing after weaving around one hundred seals, and he grinned as he said, "Alright…I think I've kept you waiting long enough, beautiful. Let's see how you like this…Suiton – Suichūjakō no Jutsu (Water Style – Water Pillar Snake Thrashing Technique)!"

Suddenly, the floor began to rumble, and Temari began to stumble around as the hard tiles vibrated in place. Tarumi's hands separated, and he held them in front of his body before pointing upwards with both of his pointer and middle fingers. The ground burst apart as numerous pillars of water shot out, originating from the plumbing that the young man had inquired about earlier.

As one of the liquid towers burst only a few feet in front of her, the blonde had to jump around to avoid the writhing water technique. "What the hell's going on?" she screamed, dodging to the best of her ability but still getting drenched for the most part.

"Just a part of the game, sweetheart," her opponent replied with a chuckle, "I take my time preparing my attacks, but I make them count when the time is right." As the last of the seventeen pillars erupted from the ground, surprisingly solid thanks to the technique being used, the Waterfall genin began a complicated set of movements with his hands and fingers. The serpent like ropes of water ceased any vibration for a moment, perfectly upright and rigid, before lashing out in all manners of complicated patterns. Mist sprayed every which way, and the spectators were forced to guard their faces against the spray.

Temari quickly unfurled her fan and began a similarly complicated dance, aimed simply at surviving. The water whips were rather innocuous (how deadly can water be?), but as she quickly found out, that wasn't necessarily true. Even the metal-rimmed edge of her war fan was having trouble slicing through the thick, writhing pseudo-beings, and as she dodged a particularly tenacious attack, it slammed into the ground, creating a very real and very deep impression before launching back into the air.

Further complicating the issue she was having was that there was no easy or obvious way to get rid of any of the pillars. Temari finally managed to back off enough to quickly launch of a blast of her patented "Kamaitachi no Jutsu (Sickle Weasel Technique)!" A number of sharpened wind blades erupted from the cloth bound weapon bisected the majority of the whips of Tarumi's technique, but as bucket loads of water fell to the ground, the remnants and survivors of the assault absorbed the liquid, and in no time, the Waterfall ninja's dangerous technique was renewed back to full power. The young woman attempted this maneuver a few more times, trying to divert the water flow to an area of the arena that the whips couldn't reach, but Tarumi had planned his technique well, and there weren't many places that the waves couldn't reach.

"Boy, oh boy." Kankurō whistled at the impressive technique and grinned down at his little brother. "How's she going to get out of this with a win, huh?"

"That guy's got some serious power," Gaara admitted, using a thin, rotating shield of sand to block the spray from reaching either him or his elder sibling. "But…there are some serious weaknesses in his technique."

"Really?" The makeup-sporting genin was somewhat surprised at that assessment. "How do you figure that?"

The redhead gestured at the taller male ninja on the floor. "Just watch. Temari's beginning to wear him down. He just doesn't know it yet."

Quickly realizing that long-range attacks weren't working, the pigtailed blonde attempted to duck through the treelike pillars and get in close to attack her opponent, but as she began to swing her opened fan down, not only was she rebuffed by his arm guards, but the whips were flexible enough to wrap around their owner and protect as well as rebuff any foreign invaders. She tried a number of different approaches, but now that he wasn't as restrained by the formation of handseals, his arms moved with fluidity and speed, blocking attacks and directing the flow of his water. Finally, she managed to slip through the cracks of her opponent's rather formidable defense and tried to slash with a kunai she had hidden away, but Tarumi was prepared, catching the swipe with one arm and retaliating with a punch to the face.

Temari backed away after that and took a moment to catch her breath. "My apologies for that, beautiful," the Waterfall genin said, looking genuinely sorry, "I'm usually against that type of thing, but I get the feeling that you'd be more insulted if I held back than if I went all out."

The blonde smirked and nodded her agreement, though her mind was more occupied in figuring out a better plan of attack. She had already wasted a lot of chakra trying to attack at long distance, with very little or no effect. Getting up close and personal had done almost nothing, and she had a few bruises blossoming all over her body from the water whips.

Suddenly, she felt like slapping herself. The answer wasn't distance; it was something else entirely. Briefly checking to make sure that her fan was unfurled, she wiped the blood from her lip and slapped her fan. "Fūton – Tatsumakihō (Wind Style – Dragon Pasture Reckoning OR Tornado Retribution)!" she exclaimed as she swung the large metal weapon in a large arc.

Finally finding an equal to Tarumi's technique, four thin, tall tornadoes erupted from her fan and held steady in front of her body. "Let's see how this works out…" she murmured softly before swinging the fan again, directing the cyclones forward. Much like Kiba and Akamaru's display earlier, the vortexes shot forward, leaving the ground and piercing through the various water whips, scattering the liquid in a way that Temari's previous attacks had failed to do.

Tarumi was caught off guard by this maneuver but kept his composure, clasping his hands together. The dispersed spray began to coagulate around the cyclones, and the blonde suddenly felt some resistance behind her strikes. The Kazekage's daughter quickly realized that her opponent was attempting to hijack her attack with his own and began to pour more chakra into the wind technique, though she was relatively sure that it wouldn't be enough. "Come on…hurry up…" she urged.

"I don't know, Gaara…" Kankurō said in bemusement, "It doesn't look like she has this under control to me…"

His younger brother turned his head slightly, and the hooded puppet master could see the barest hint of a grin on his face. "You'd be surprised…she's just about got him in her grasp."

The Waterfall genin began to smirk, thinking exactly the opposite. "You know, gorgeous, no one would look down on you if you surrendered. The Hokage himself said that these matches would play into your candidacy for promotion, and from what I've seen here, I'd be willing to bet that you'd be a prime chūnin candidate." To add to the effect, he poured more power into his water-based assault to put pressure on the young female.

Temari smirked despite the situation. "I'm so touched that you care, but I'll take my chances!" She did the same as her opponent, surprising him with how much she still had left in reserve.

"Well, well…" Tarumi mused, intrigued at her resolve. "It looks like I'm going to have to go all out to finish you off, then." He shifted his hands, currently in a prayer-like position, to a clasped position, and began to chant the name of his next technique. "Suiton…"

"Don't move."

The Waterfall genin was briefly shocked at the foreign voice but did as the voice heeded, slowly letting his hands drop to his side. As he looked down, he noticed a rather large scythe resting lightly against his neck. The spectators noticed that the struggle between the wind and water techniques had come to a screeching halt, as Temari's efforts seemed to cease at that exact moment.

"Now, I want you to slowly, and I mean slowly, release your technique, and then we'll talk about how _you're_ going to surrender to Master Temari." Turning his head slightly, he could see a yard long white weasel, a black and red vest, and a face covered in a green bandana and eyepatch. The lone visible eye regarded him with a touch of amused indifference, though the longhaired young man could tell that the mammal was ready to strike at a moment's notice.

Despite the obviously bad situation he was in, Tarumi chuckled. "Alright, alright, you got me. Hold on a second." He did as his captor had ordered, carefully bringing his hands up. He formed a few handseals, and slowly, the waterspouts blew apart, with all of the liquid crashing to the floor. Temari did likewise and dispersed her own technique, so all that was left of their fight were seventeen holes into which the water drained, some divots from the whips, and some holes from the tornadoes.

After a few moments passed, the weasel poked his 'captive' in the back and growled half-heartedly. "What are you waiting for?"

"Alright, alright," Tarumi laughed. He looked at Genma and said, "I give up. Sweetheart over there got me good." Feeling the pressure at his neck immediately go away, he turned his head fully to address the rough rodent, who smirked and darted back to his master. Temari gave him a fond pat on the head before he disappeared.

The Waterfall genin then walked over and stood before his opponent. "Boy, I can't honestly say I've met a girl as feisty as you, asides from my sister."

The blonde gave the flirt an appraising look but remained silent for a few moments before speaking. "You're not bad yourself, though I can tell you'd be a lot more powerful and effective in a team." With that, Gaara gave his brother a sidelong gaze, and the made-up genin grinned ruefully.

Tarumi openly laughed and scratched the back of his head, even as his sister rolled her eyes as if she had known about these problems due to past experience. "Yeah, it's kinda bad, really. When my brother and sister are around, it's a lot easier to show off, but when I have to fight on my own, it takes a lot out of me." He cocked his head slightly and looked more carefully at Temari before, surprisingly, drawing out his cell phone. "So, did I impress you enough to get a phone number out of you?"

That certainly caught the Sand genin off guard, but she recovered quickly and retorted, "We'll see, cowboy. Find me after these matches are over, okay?" Tarumi simply shrugged, and the two began to walk back to the platform, the gentleman allowing the lady to go first.

As their conversation had been occurring, the board had lit back to life, and the next match had been posted…

**Zaku Abumi**

**vs.**

**Tenten**

"Alright, my turn now!" the bunhaired girl exclaimed happily, making to vault the railing, but she was stopped by a hand on her arm. The hand was attached to the stoic façade of Hyūga Neji, who looked much more worried than he normally allowed himself to be. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Beware of this guy," he replied, his eyes darting to the psychotic genin who was already standing on the floor, impatiently tapping his foot. "He's not all right in the head. He's strong too, and that's not a good combination, no matter how you look at it."

"I know, I was there too, you know," she replied half-jokingly, "I'll be fine, okay?" She touched his hand lightly and gave him a slight nod, and he finally relented and let go of her arm. She leapt down into the arena and stood opposite Zaku, matching him glare for glare.

As soon as Genma gave the go-ahead, Zaku immediately bared his palms and shouted viciously, "Zankūha (Decapitating Air Waves)!" As had occurred many times before, two hypersonic blasts of pure sound shot out of his hands, right towards Tenten. Luckily, as a witness to the attack before, she was well prepared to counter. Extracting one of the scrolls hanging from her belt, she unfurled it and summoned a massive, clear shield. It was rectangular in shape and covered the young woman's body completely if she crouched slightly, though it wasn't apparent how it would block anything.

Sure enough though, when the air and sound waves slammed into the shield, they dispersed almost immediately, and there was nary a scratch on it. The death-obsessed genin wasn't too pleased about that, and he let the girl know it. "Oi, oi, oi, what the hell is that thing?" he griped loudly, pointing at the shield. "There's not a substance alive that can stop a potent force like my attack completely."

"You must not get out much," Tenten retorted, beginning to sign slowly behind the shield as to not draw attention to her actions. "I saw what your technique was capable of in the forest. It's a lot more effective at destroying soft and brittle materials, but this is a flexible plastic, fully capable of absorbing anything short of a focused A- or high B-rank technique."

The Sound genin scoffed at her apparent underestimation of his abilities. "That sounds like a challenge to me…" he muttered, withdrawing two oddly shaped kunai from his holsters. They resembled Swiss cheese more than weapons; the metal was riddled with a number of small holes, and the handle was wider and visibly hollow. He grasped both in a backhand grip and began to dash forward with a crazed grin.

As he approached her at surprisingly high speeds, Tenten finished forming the base of her next technique, and she tapped the composite guard propped up in front of her. Two summoning seals flared to life, and a barrage of small weapons and blades erupted from both formulas to intercept Zaku's charge.

'Child's play…' the taller male thought, still feeling slighted by his opponent's estimation of his skills. He adjusted the grip of his own kunai and blasted a forceful burst of air from his palms while leaping, giving him just enough momentum to clear the attack. Tenten allowed her technique to continue until completion, only a handful of seconds, before dispersing the shield. As all of the blades clattered to the ground harmlessly, she tapped another seal on her summoning scroll and conjured up a long glaive to combat her opponent.

Zaku landed lightly a step or two away from the bunhaired kunoichi and immediately began to slice away with his oddly constructed weapons. Thanks to her ornate broad blade, Tenten easily countered the quick but obvious strikes with simple movements. Still, the Sound genin was content to keep slicing and slashing, as if he wasn't concerned about finding an opening immediately.

Guy's student continually parried each strike, though the speed and superior reach of her opponent would occasionally allow him to slip a strike through her defense. In any other circunstance, those would only score light to moderately deep scratches on her arms, but the injuries from these odd weapons bubbled and blistered, as if…blasts of air were being injected under her skin.

"Ah…," Tenten mused, "So that's how you do it…" Despite the pain in her left arm, torso, and legs where she had been struck, she was quite proud of herself for identifying the cause behind the problem so fast. "It's like a wasp knife, except not as potent and with a much larger air supply. The only limit is how much chakra you have." She nodded in spite of her dislike for the taller youth. "It's rather ingenious, especially for you…"

"So what?" Zaku snapped, choosing to stab out of anger instead of the superficial slices that he had hoped would pile up. "You know how my technique works? Big deal. It won't save you, bitch!"

"Still seems to have gotten you all riled up," his opponent retorted, blocking both blades at once and using that to leap away from the action. Realizing now what the weapons were capable of, she dismissed her glaive because it was ill suited to completely defend against the attacks.

As the Sound genin stood nearby tentatively, waiting to see what would happen, Tenten crossed her arms in front of her face, fingers splayed out and glowing with chakra. It wasn't immediately obvious what she was up to, and Zaku even began to creep forward, shuffling his feet slowly.

One of his toes brushed up against one of the generic weapons that had been scattered earlier from the riot shield summoning attack, and it suddenly began to vibrate in place, rattling around on the ground. The death-scribed ninja looked down, this having piqued his curiosity, and he noticed that it was not the only metal object moving. In fact, all of Tenten's 'discarded' blades and weapons had begun to move, and as he watched in horror, every single one of them began to slowly rise into the air. A tugging in his own hands caught his attention, and he realized that even his own weapons weren't safe. He made a cursory effort to hold on to them, but he quickly realized that the wise thing to do would be to try to come up with a counterattack.

A veritable cloud of metal rose into the air and every Hyūga in the arena could see the mass of chakra strings emanating from Tenten's fingers. Zaku grimaced as he observed this admittedly awe-inspiring spectacle, but as his brain churned through a number of ideas, the perfect one began to form, and his lips curled up in a sneer.

"Well…what do you think? Pretty impressive, huh?" the bunhaired genin asked. For once, her loudmouth opponent chose to keep his opinions to himself, lest he give anything away, and simply glared at her. Somewhat disappointed that she couldn't get a rise out of him this time, she shrugged and added, "Have it your way. Sōgu – Kōjin no Mai (Manipulated Tools – Dance of Steel Blades)!" Again, only those with really sharp eyes were able to detect the slightest twitch in the fingers of the weapon master before a number of weapons from all around the cloud shot down towards Zaku. There was seemingly no pattern to the assault, but that didn't worry the male genin one bit. He clenched his fists a number of times before firing small, precise blasts of sound and air from the tubes in his palms, his attacks much more fine tuned than the pure destructive force he had demonstrated up until that point.

His strategy worked, as none of the blades got within a couple of feet of him, and Tenten frowned as she launched them back into her technique. "Okay, let's try something more widespread, huh?" This time, her hands moved in a fashion that was much more overt and allowed everyone to see her intentions more clearly. The general pattern was the same, but with her hand movements, the cloud had shifted downwards so that it extended nearly to the ground a few feet behind both Tenten and Zaku, and the number of launched weapons was much greater.

Still, the attacks were not doing anything hardly to the Sound genin, as he just upped the destructive potential and breadth of his attack to match, and the end result was just the same, except that the Leaf kunoichi was forced to dodge a couple of her own weapons due to the speed they still possessed from Zaku's counterattack. "This is starting to get boring. Are all of the Hidden Leaf Village's ninja really this weak?" he complained, cracking his neck in blatant boredom. "You're about as worthless as that white-eyed bitch and the two mutts that we battled in the forest.

While she didn't necessarily get as riled up about this as some of her village mates, especially the Byakugan users and Uchiha Shisui, the young woman still held her fair share of pride, and this insulting behavior towards her fellow Leaf genin wasn't appreciated. Her eyebrow twitched slightly as she growled, "You seem to forget that you ran away from our team when we showed up. Let me refresh your memory!" She crouched and leapt far into the air, whipping her arms upwards. All of the weapons followed her, and Zaku was soon facing a veritable cloud of metal ready to rain down on him. "I'll show you how weak the Hidden Leaf Village is!" the bunhaired girl shouted triumphantly, "Sōgu – Kōsenran (Manipulated Tools – Steel Hailstorm)!"

The tall Sound genin couldn't help but feel a small amount of surprise at this new variation of attack; unlike Tenten's earlier attacks that shot isolated pockets of blades in a relatively random pattern, this assault was blatantly obvious and left no room for escape. Knifes, swords, kunai, shuriken, axes, maces, and a number of other close combat weapons shot from the sky, living up to the name of the technique.

"Yeah!" Naruto shouted, leaning over the railing in anticipation, "She's got that loser now!"

"Go Tenten!" Lee added exuberantly, "Show them the youthful power of the Hidden Leaf's genin!"

The three female ninja that were observing from the home platform all shouted cheers for their friend, but no one except for the always-watchful Shikamaru caught the worrisome expressions on the faces of the jōnin sensei scattered around.

Zaku grinned despite the imminent danger he was facing. "Of all the people that would force me to bust this technique out…" he muttered, lowering his arms into a crossed position near his belt, where his palms began to emit a low hiss. Looking directly at his opponent, his voice elevated in a victorious tone, "It's been real, sweetheart, but I'm tired of playing around." He whipped both of his hands so that his palms were pointing straight at the swarm of metal zooming towards his body. "Zankūkyokuha (Extreme Decapitating Air Waves)!"

For a moment, Tenten believed that she had the victory in the bag; based on her previous exposure to the Sound genin's technique, she assumed that the purported 'extreme' version would be slightly stronger, but not nearly enough to overcome the sheer volume of weapons she had at her disposal.

Unfortunately, she was badly mistaken. Zaku's attack variation had at least four to five times the kick that his base technique carried, with an equivalent speed boost as well. It also didn't help that she was stuck in the air, just hanging as a necessary risk behind her attack, so she had nowhere to go. The massive blast of air and sound ripped through the metal blades as if they weren't even there and hit Tenten like a freight train. Screaming in surprise and pain, her body slammed into the ceiling, and she promptly lost consciousness as she fell towards the floor.

All three of the males on her team immediately made to end the match and help her out, but Zaku had other plans. He leapt into the air and caught the helpless young woman, but instead of handling her limp form in his arms or on his back, the ruthless genin had grabbed her by the throat, and as he lightly touched back on the ground, he shook her a little, allowing her feet just enough contact with the floor to prevent any permanent damage. "Hey!" he snapped, either not realizing that she couldn't answer or didn't care in the least. "We're not done until you tell me where…" and he swept his free arm around, where weapons lay all around them, "…my damn knives are. I'm not in the mood to look for them "

"Tenten, wake up!" Lee shouted, his voice revealing a tone of anxiety that was uncommon for him.

"Don't let that jerk beat you!" Ino screamed angrily, "He doesn't deserve to win! He plays dirty!"

Zaku rolled his eyes at the show of the Leaf contingency and shook his captive a little. After waiting for a few moments, he finally seemed to come to the realization that she wasn't going to be waking up anytime soon. "Huh…" he muttered, his face slowly contorting into an unpleasant grin. "Well, have it your way." The psychopathic genin flexed his free hand, and it was obvious he was gathering chakra into it. "Zank…"

"That's enough." Zaku suddenly found himself surrounded by four angry Leaf ninja. Genma had his arm around the Sound genin's neck, Guy had slapped away the attacking palm, and Lee was holding Tenten. Neji, however, looked livid as he stood behind the nasty young man, stooped into a generic Jūken stance. The exam proctor, who was the one who had spoken up, noticed this, and released his 'captive' with a shove that was harder than was maybe needed. "You're done," he muttered, "You have your victory; no need to pound the point home."

The spiky haired ninja shrugged and grinned at the group around him, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "No problem, sir. No problem at all." With a wave, he turned and began walking back to his team, even as Lee gingerly helped his ailing teammate onto a waiting stretcher. The death-obsessed young man had to walk by Neji, who slowly and reluctantly drew back up to his normal height and stance, and as they crossed paths, the foreigner from Sound whispered, "Just you wait, Hyūga. You're next, and curse seal or not, your ass is mine…" He flashed his nasty grin once more and continued on his way, stopping briefly to pick up his weapons now that all of Tenten's had dispersed from an extended lack of chakra. The normally stoic young man kept his cool, though his thoughts were suddenly full of desire for that matchup to occur in the next round just so he could pound some sense into that spiky-haired piece of shi…

"Neji." The young Hyūga shook himself from his musings and looked up into the face of his teacher. "Are you alright?" Guy asked, his voice only slightly grandiose relative to his normal tone. The long-haired youth nodded, and he allowed the bowlcut-sporting jōnin to clap him on the shoulder and lead him back to the Leaf platform.

No one was really in a conversational mood due to the way that the previous match had ended, and the next pairing appeared with little to no fanfare…

**Kanchū Fū**

**vs.**

**Yakushi Kabuto**

…however that changed once the excitable jinchūriki saw her name appear. "Yahoo!" she exclaimed happily. "It's my turn!" She turned to look at Tarumi briefly and added, "Don't forget to cheer me on!" before taking a huge leap into the arena. Her long-haired brother merely chuckled at her exuberance.

Kabuto chose a much more muted and less showy approach, opting to simply walk down the stairs to reach the fighting ground. Once he had done that, Genma briefly nodded to indicate the start of the match and leapt away.

Fū wasted no time at all, buzzing in like an irritated beetle and starting a hailstorm of punches and kicks. It was all that the elder genin could do to keep up with her assault, and as such, he was forced to focus solely on blocking with his hands and forearms. To his credit, he was doing an admirable job at this particular strategy, and many of his fellow villagers had to wonder, based on their brief exposure to him before the start of the exams, if this was something that he did on a regular basis due to a lack of any serious offensive potential.

Backing away, the foreign young woman bounced back from the engagement (if you could call it that) and leapt into the air. She didn't return back to the ground as two large insect wings sprouted from her back, and the sound of the vibrations spread throughout the arena. Ignoring the gasps of awe from those who had not yet seen this interesting transformation, she dove back into the fray, this time focusing more on lightning fast kicks and knee strikes. Still, Kabuto remained steady in his approach to the fight, and in a way, the aerial assault was a lot easier to defend. Despite her speed, Fū couldn't attack as quickly with her legs as she could with her fists, and as such, the Leaf genin was once again able to fight her off.

The teal-haired young woman quickly grew frustrated with this, as she frankly couldn't hold her concentration long enough to stay interested in such a lame bout. Backing off once more to float around seven meters above the ground, she formed a single handseal and exclaimed, "Hijutsu – Rinpun Rendan (Secret Technique – Scale Barrage)!" Instead of her normal method of attack, a number of sharpened scales blasted out of the two wings on her back right towards Kabuto.

This forced a more proactive approach out of the bespectacled genin. His hands began to glow with chakra, somewhat more pale and green than the usual shade of the life force, and he quickly slapped away all of the small, shining projectiles with his palms. He almost resembled a Hyūga in the way that he effortlessly deflected the attack.

At yet another failure, Fū dropped to the ground and glared at her opponent. "Come on, dude," she complained, stomping her foot angrily, "What's the deal?"

"I'm afraid I don't follow…" Kabuto replied slowly, his face showing the confusion that he was feeling.

"This!" Fū gestured anxiously at the ground, and then at herself, and then at the gray haired expert on the Chūnin Exams. "You aren't fighting back!" Her face momentarily looked thoughtful before she continued, "Actually, you're not fighting at all! Don't you want to win?"

The older youth shrugged lightly, which did nothing but cause the Waterfall kunoichi more angst, and replied, "You have your ways of fighting, and I have mine. We all go about our business with different methods and strategies, and I would hope you would respect that."

"I don't know, man…" Fū grumbled, "It's just that I would have thought that you'd have had more urgency given that this is the Chūnin Exams, that's all…"

From his perch above, Naruto watched the fight with no little amount of interest, given the girl's similarity to him. Some stomping nearby briefly distracted him, and the two male members of Team 8 came into view, with Shino and Kiba helping each other up the stairs and Akamaru safety tucked into his owner's arms. "Woah, who's the hot chick?" the canine master asked excitedly, letting loose a wolf whistle.

"And why are my friends reacting to her chakra in such a strong manner?" the insect user added quietly, and all of his classmates could tell that his interest was piqued by this woman.

Shikamaru, hand clasped behind his head, turned to his right and asked, "Do you want to explain or do I have to, Naruto?"

The genin of Teams 8 and 9 were sufficiently confused by this, though the jōnin seemingly were not fazed at all. "What are you talking about?" Lee inquired, "What needs to be explained?"

The lazy Nara gave Naruto a long, hard look, and the blonde finally sighed in defeat. "You know about my friend? The one in here?" He pointed to his stomach, and everyone nodded, and something finally clicked in Neji's mind, relating to what he had seen with his Byakugan in the forest. "Well, he's got nine, and the kabutomushi (Japanese rhinoceros beetle) inside of her…" gesturing down to the competitors, "…has seven."

Lee's eyes lit up on the spot, as even he was able to decipher the thinly veiled statement. "That is incredible!" he exclaimed, surprising everyone, "I need to see if she would be willing to spar with me. I bet her youthful flames shine as bright as Naruto's fighting spirit!"

"Calm down, Bushy Brows," the Leaf jinchūriki chuckled, "You haven't even fought yet."

"That just gives me even more motivation to grasp victory in my match!" the excitable youth shouted, and everyone rolled their eyes or diverted their attention back to the duel or to their private conversations, save for one. Shino, from his leaning position on the railing, kept his eyes solely on the holder of the Seven Tails. His gaze was locked on to her the rest of the day.

"So…how about this?" the female competitor proposed, growing tired of this farce, "I'm going to let you attack me once, just to get your juices flowing. Nothing perverted or anything, just a punch or kick. Maybe that'll make this a little more exciting…"

Kabuto shrugged with a smile and slowly traipsed over until he stood nearly nose-to-nose with the young woman. "Is this really okay?" he asked, not truly convinced but also not opposed to a free strike. She nodded impatiently, so the taller genin lightly jabbed her abdomen with his fingers. "Well, that was fun," he added lightly.

"Are you ready to go now?" Fū pushed him further.

The gray-haired young man cocked his head and smiled before turning to Genma. "I forfeit, sir," he said simply, "She's way out of my league, there's no way I can beat her."

The expression on the female jinchūriki's face was priceless, and a number of the Leaf genin began to laugh at her reaction as she ranted vehemently about her sudden lack of opponent. Nevertheless, the board lit back up as the next match was prepared…

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! We're down to Sasuke, Sakura, Chōji, Lee, Kankurō, and Gaara, folks. There is some serious potential in there for juicy matchups, but maybe not the ones you anticipated.

Also, yes, I gave Tenten a riot shield. Why the hell not. Unfortunately her getting screwed over was a necessity. She'll get her time, don't worry. I love her character, and she deserves better.

**Review Responses:**

**windwarrior234: **I'm glad that you like how I've altered Kiba and Ino. Like I said earlier, I think I've made my point about relative power levels, huh?

If you think about the Orochimaru encounter, it's not all that strange. He popped up during the canon exams as well in a similar capacity.

**UltraMickey: **Nope, we're sticking to canon norms in this tale. That's not to say every pairing will be completely the same (right now I have a few in mind, as well as some real shockers for early plot stories to lead into the real deal), but I can guarantee no yaoi because that's not something I believe in for this type of story.


	19. (Chūnin Exams 11) Chapter 18

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Minato managed to quell a dispute threatening to boil over between the elders and Hyūga Hiashi concerning the latter's nephew and Orochimaru, though it was obvious the issue wasn't resolved. Karin and Kin Tsuchi were the next two competitors, and it was obvious from their verbal jabs that this was going to be a catfight. The Grass kunoichi held the advantage for much of the fight, even when Kin appeared to gain the upper hand, and ended up the victor thanks to an apparent immunity to genjutsu and natural healing ability that sparked something in Kushina's mind. Temari and Tarumi were pitted next, and their flirty exchange wasn't indicative of the immense power both held. The Waterfall youth's steady Suiton techniques and the slicing wind of the Kazekage's daughter led to somewhat of a stalemate, though Temari's mind eventually overcame Tarumi's admittedly poor matchup. Zaku and Tenten was much the opposite in tone, as Zaku dominated all aspects of the fight and nearly earned himself a disqualification for pure brutality. Finally, the match between Fū and Kabuto turned out to be extremely anticlimactic, as the female jinchūriki dominated all aspects of the fight but ended up the victor after the forfeit of the older Leaf genin.

**AN:** Final chapter of the second round. Next ~5 chapters will be a mash-up of training montages, parties, interactions, and dates (yeah, I said dates) before setting up for the final third of the Chūnin Exams. Sorry for the delay, I had to pass my thesis defense and whatnot.

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 18 – The Second Round Ends! The Battles of Admiration and Youth!**

"I figured it out!" Lee erupted, clutching his fist victoriously.

His teacher let loose a booming laugh and clapped the shorter bowlcut sporting ninja on the shoulder. "What did you figure out, my youthful protégé?" he asked boisterously.

"I can only imagine…" Neji muttered under his breath next to them.

"Whatever is choosing the matches has it out for me!" he replied with as angry a tone as could be expected from Rock Lee, "I don't even want to fight until the very end! I'd rather be the grand finale than to be spited further!"

"That's the spirit!" Guy laughed happily, obviously finding no fault with that type of attitude. He flashed his protégé a thumbs-up, which was promptly returned.

As to be expected, the surrounding villagers were surprised in spite of themselves at the proclamation. Kakashi's visible eye could barely be seen twitching, though that was mostly due to the acute poisoning of Lee's mind by his youth-obsessed teacher. Sasuke and Neji shared similar stoic looks marked by a similar muscle spasm in the ocular region, and Naruto didn't even bother trying to hide his incredulousness. Shikamaru rolled his eyes, and Sakura and Ino were both amazed by his idiocy.

Of course, Guy misinterpreted their looks completely. "Just you wait, my youthful student!" he boomed, "Everyone here cannot wait to watch you compete!"

As if it was waiting for that exact moment, the board lit back up with the next match.

**Rock Lee**

**vs.**

**Kankurō**

"I KNEW IT!" the excitable genin exclaimed, "I fooled the board! Reverse psychology works every time! I shall fight to the best of my abilities and…"

"**This guy challenges you and his teacher for the position of village idiot…" **Kurama muttered to his host as Lee continued to ramble on and on. Naruto felt a sensation similar to a poke as the giant fox continued, **"You look as smart as your father compared to that loud-mouthed idiot."**

'I honestly have no idea how to react to all of this,' the blonde thought back, his face drawn out in incredulousness.

"**He's first on my list of people to eat if I ever get the urge to stomp this place out of existence…" **the massive chakra construct rumbled before blocking his access to his host's sight.

"I won't stop you…" Naruto muttered under his breath as he reluctantly caught the end of Lee's rant.

"…and I finally have my opportunity to show off my skills to a worthy opponent!" Finally finished, the excited genin clambered up onto the railing and clutched his fist victoriously before charging into the arena.

"Good luck, my wonderful student!" Guy shouted happily, "Show off the true power of the youth of the Hidden Leaf Village!"

Across the way, the three Sand siblings were watching this unfold, simply incredulous at the young man's behavior. "Man, is this dude for real?" the newest competitor wondered, "No way in hell I can take this fool seriously."

Temari could only chuckle at this newest development and the fact that her mostly straight-laced brother had to deal with it. "Better you than me. I'd give up just to not have to deal with it. In fact…" She shot a look at her youngest brother, "…the only way this could be any funnier is if Gaara was the one that had to deal with this guy."

"I don't want to think about it…" the stoic youth muttered in reply, "I might just let Shukaku loose on that guy just to stop his nonsense." Both of the older desert youth just snorted at his dry sense of humor, though they both knew that there was a grain of truth behind his words.

The face-painted genin stretched his limbs and lifted one leg onto the railing. "This isn't going to end any faster, I guess…" he sighed in resignation, "Let's see what this guy's made of." With that, he leapt over the metal bar and into the arena.

"Don't trip over your own feet!" Temari couldn't stand to let him go without one last jab, and her smirk widened as he held back from a retort due to the presence of their father, who was sternly frowning at their behavior.

Genma casually walked over as Kankurō did the same, and he waited until both competitors looked sufficiently prepared before signaling the start of the match.

Lee, who had been standing in the classic "good guy" pose made famous by his teacher, wasted no time in engaging in the fight. Before the Sand genin could even blink twice, the green-clad ninja was already in his face, shouting, "Konoha Senpū (Leaf Whirlwind)!"

Despite the speed of the attack, Kankurō reacted fast enough to block the high kick that threatened to behead him by whipping both of his arms up into a defensive position, but the impact was minimal, and he was caught enough off balance that he couldn't protect himself from the sweeping low kick. As such, he lost his footing and fell onto his rear end.

Continuing on his offensive, Lee leapt into the air and spun right above his opponent briefly before delivering a falling kick with an exclamation of "Konoha Otoshi (Leaf Drop)!" The Kazekage's oldest son was barely able to roll away in time, though he was somewhat impeded by the large scrolls slung on his back. He used his hands to push off the ground, away from the melee specialist, and barely managed to avoid an uppercut to the chin.

"Woohoo!" the Sand ninja breathed, ducking another punch, "You aren't half bad, brat! That outfit doesn't do your skills justice."

That was enough to get the taijutsu user to stop, and he frowned as he backed away and settled back into his standby pose. "What are you talking about?" he queried honestly, "This is a training suit famous among the ninja of the Hidden Leaf Village. Guy-sensei became the man that he is today by wearing this fantastic clothing, and I can only hope to be like him one day!"

As fired up as he was, the leader of Team 9 was even more pumped up, and he bellowed down from the platform, "That's the spirit, Lee! Show our friend here what the power of green spandex is all about!"

"Yes sir!" the chakra-stunted genin affirmed loudly. He quickly crossed his arms in front of his face and chest, appearing to focus hard for a moment…before disappearing into the wind.

Many of the observers gasped in surprise and began to murmur amongst themselves, but Kankurō wasn't too fazed. "Well, this is getting interesting…" he whispered in anticipation, "Let's see what I can do here…" The black-clad genin reached behind him and extracted one of the scrolls from the holster he was wearing. It was dark brown with a white wrapping, with the kanji for 'salamander' prominently written on the slip. Knowing that he was short on time, the foreign ninja unfurled the scroll and slapped the central summoning seal just as Lee reappeared in the air, approximately seven yards above his opponent's head. A cloud of smoke obscured the immediately battleground, but the taijutsu user didn't shy away and continued his strike.

The spectators all heard a loud crack but couldn't see a thing for a few moments until a green blur shot back out and stood where he had a few seconds prior. This time though, he wore an uncharacteristic frown as he favored the leg that he had used in his kicking assault.

The thin haze cleared, and Kankurō's form had disappeared, replaced by a giant wooden amphibian. The main body was about ten feet long, with a huge mouth, curled tail, and curious metal ruff around its neck. The cracking sound was the impact of Lee's leg on the wooden and metal body of the odd beat, and the spandex-clan ninja wondered softly, "What is that thing made out of?" as he rubbed at his wounded appendage, which was more stunned than seriously injured.

"Just some chakra-treated wood and the strongest metal alloys available in the Hidden Sand Village, my strange friend." The voice of the foreign opponent floated out from inside the strange creature, and a few moments later, the metal shield-like frill began to retract. As the hard cloak dispersed, and the tail uncoiled to rest on the floor, Kankurō could be seen once more as he stood back up from his crouched position. The made-up warrior leapt back so that he stood a few yards behind the oversized salamander, and he brought his chakra-charged hands up so that everyone could see the puppetry strands connecting him to his partner. "My pal Sanshōuo here is my most defensive puppet, and it'll take everything you've got to get past him," the Sand genin continued, his face bleeding with confidence, "Even my father has had a fair share of problems getting around its defensive prowess. So…doo you think you have it in you?"

"That sounds like a challenge to me, especially if the price is surpassing the power of one of the Kage," Lee shot back, his smile having returned as he gently bounced on his appendage to get his blood flowing again, "As the Handsome Devil of the Hidden Leaf Village, I will happily accept!"

"Then come on, eyebrow man! Show me what you've got!" Kankurō snapped, dropping his friendly façade and adopting a battle-ready mindset. He quickly leapt back forward and landed on his partner's back, standing in just the right position such that he could reactivate the metal ruff-shield in the case of an unexpected charge.

This turned out to be extremely wise, as the swift genin disappeared in a blur once more, and the wind kicked up in the arena. In response, the Kazekage's oldest son simply twitched his fingers, and Sanshōuo shot forwards, the joints of its stumpy limbs creaking and rattling as the pseudo-amphibian scuttled across the concrete floor at a surprisingly high speed. The breeze of movement caused by Lee's pure physical ability began to shift as well in an effort to keep his prey in a mostly captured position.

Suddenly, Kankurō's fingers moved once more, and the massive wooden animal leapt into the air, once more shocking many of those who were observing the fight at how agile it was. "Alright, let's see how you like this…Kurohigi – Ryōseikatsu (Black Secret Technique – Amphibious Division)!" The construct began to groan as joints and connections started to detach from each other through a number of complicated mechanisms built in. Soon enough, the four limbs and head of the puppet separated from the main body, where the controller remained, and floated in the air momentarily. "And…attack!" All five parts immediately ejected either blades, from the ends of the limbs, or both blades and a flamethrower in the case of the cranial part, before shooting down in separate directions towards the blur that was Rock Lee.

As the main body of Sanshōuo crashed back to the ground, with its controller landing more gracefully a moment later, the appendages and head began to zip around, seemingly slicing and dicing at the thin air. Soon enough, though, the green-clad genin began to reappear due to the hazards of continuing to maneuver at such a high speed, and his efforts switched to a pure survival and defensive strategy. The gleaming blades of the arms and legs of the wooden salamander danced a wicked waltz with Lee as he made his best effort to duck, dodge, and deflect the improvised projectiles, though he wasn't having too much luck with destroying them.

Even more of an issue is, like a number of earlier duels, the speed demon was slowly being driven back towards the wall, and unlike his earlier counterparts, Lee was seemingly unaware of his surroundings. Twenty yards…fifteen yards…twelve yards…ten yards…seven yards…closer and closer he drew, and yet none of his friends or teammates dared say a thing, lest they accidentally break his concentration.

Five yards…four…three…two…one…and his back slammed into the concrete barrier, coincidentally the one right under where Neji and Guy were standing. Kankurō grinned and whipped his fingers and hands around triumphantly, and the four appendages shot forward, with the larger head following right behind.

Luckily, Lee was no fool, despite his looks, and he used his speed to dodge under the four daggers and then the head, quickly ducking forward and freeing himself. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the plan, as Kankurō's smirk didn't diminish at all, and the head swiveled around. The barely visible tube began to flash with flames, and a wave of fire erupted from the salamander's mouth. It was all the green-clad genin could do to keep out of the inferno, back flipping multiple times in the opposite direction.

That is, until a large shadow fell over him, and Lee disappeared from view as the body of Sanshōuo, which he had lost track of in his desperate fight to prevent being skewered, swallowed him up by trapping him in the normally defensive enclosure.

The Sand genin walked over, summoning the other parts of his partner's body to hang in the air around him, as various and sundry thumping sounds could be heard from within the iron shell. "What do you say now, Handsome Devil of the Hidden Leaf Village?" he taunted good-naturedly, using the style of name shared by both teacher and student. "I've got all four of Sanshōuo's limbs, a mouth full of blades, and a flamethrower trained on you, and if you don't give up, you're gonna make me do something I don't want to do." Almost as soon as he finished saying that, the pounding stopped, and it was obvious that the young man inside was mulling his options.

After waiting a few moments for an answer that never came, Kankurō spoke up once more, "Am I to take your silence to mean that you're still willing to fight?" The continued stillness in the air, or rather a lack of an audible response, quickly making up the mind of the Sand genin. "Alrighty, then, 'Handsome Beast,' have it your way! Don't blame me if you get hurt!" Unfurling his arms and fingers, the five mobile parts of Sanshōuo honed in on the trapped taijutsu user and shot forward for the finishing blow.

Without any warning, the chest/abdomen enclosure exploded into a number of large chunks of metal and wooden splinters. While the chunks of fractured timber clattered to the ground, the newly freed Lee grabbed the metal frill and the fanned out tail in each of his hands and charged forward. Obviously, Kankurō hadn't been expecting his defensively oriented puppet to be breached like that, but he quickly regained his composure and tried to keep the green comet from nearing any more.

The four appendages zeroed in on the speedy genin from all angles, but the Leaf ninja merely used the frill as a shield and swatted the thin projectiles away. He barely had the time to notice that they shattered upon impact as he passed by because Sanshōuo's head unleashed another torrent of flames. This time, Lee batted away the flames with the frill, and used the length afforded by the tail to keep the sharpened teeth of its mouth away as he whacked the head away as well. Their usefulness exhausted, he discarded the puppet parts and unleashed a devastating sweeping kick that knocked Kankurō onto his rear end. The green-clad genin straddled his opponent and lightly, but firmly, planted his forearm over the throat of the Kazekage's middle child. "What do you say now, my friend?" Lee asked with a hint of a smirk.

To say that the Sand ninja looked shocked was an understatement, but as the realization of what had occurred fully hit him, he began to chuckle, slowly at first but then picking up in speed until he was nearly helpless. "Oh, man…I didn't expect that at all. You're really something, you know that?" He waited a few more moments to allow some time to regain his composure before continuing, "Sure, I forfeit. There's no way I can beat someone with your level of mastery in hand to hand combat," the cornered competitor conceded. Lee grinned happily and stood back up, offering a hand to his opponent graciously, which Kankurō took with a rueful grin.

"Thank you for the fight, my friend!" the physical genin stated happily, "I have not had a chance to get such a workout in quite the long time."

The made-up son of the Sand rolled his eyes as he returned the shattered remains of his salamander puppet to a scroll. "Not sure how much of a workout you really got, but I was glad to oblige. That was fun. Hope we get a chance to do it again sometime." Lee nodded vigorously, and the two went their separate ways as the screen flashed the next match, much quicker than had been the norm up to then.

**Haruno Sakura**

**vs.**

**Gaara**

The pink-haired kunoichi of Team 7 raised an eyebrow at the matchup she was given. Unseen to any of her external compatriots, she mentally breathed a sigh of relief that she did not have to face Sasuke in her first match, though part of her regretted that she would not get a chance to prove herself in a manner that he could appreciate firsthand. She turned her head slightly and was somewhat surprised to note overly concerned looks on her teammates' faces, especially in the case of Naruto.

The blonde had an uncharacteristically serious expression as he said, "Be careful with this guy, okay?" Sakura nodded as the unique connection shared by both Kages' sons floated back to the forefront of her memory.

Sasuke was also slightly more stern than usual, and he only echoed Naruto's sentiments, giving her a very faint smile as he added, "Do your best. There's no need to beat him if you do that." She responded with a grin of her own, and as Kakashi nodded to her, she leapt into the ring, where Gaara was waiting patiently.

"She'll have her work cut out for her," Minato's student muttered softly, and both of his male students couldn't deny the truth in that statement. "The only people in here that could give this guy a challenge are you, Naruto, as well as Lee and Neji and maybe that Waterfall jinchūriki."

"She'll do fine," the dark-haired genin said, and his blonde teammate gave him a questioning glance. "Your dad already said as much, but if she can show off enough here, she'll have as much of a chance at promotion as the rest of us, even if she doesn't win," he elaborated, and Naruto nodded thoughtfully.

Down in the arena, Genma looked to the pink-haired kunoichi for confirmation that she was ready, and when she gave him an affirmative sign, he backed off, signaling the start of the match.

Much to the surprise of everyone present, much like they were in the first match of the day, Sakura took the initiative, dashing forward as soon as she was allowed to. Sprinting in a zigzag pattern, trying to keep the calm jinchūriki off balance to the extent that she was able, the pinkette drew two kunai from her pocket, baring them backhand.

As her approach grew within ten yards of her opponent, sand from Gaara's gourd sprung to life, spurting out of the small opening into a cloud around him momentarily before firing towards Sakura in a massive blob. The speed of the silicate surprised the Leaf genin, and as such, she could only helplessly swing her blades in an effort to cut at the sand as it began to consume her.

"Sakura!" Naruto roared, "Come on, get it together!" He slammed his hands onto the metal railing, ignoring the pain that shot through them.

"Calm down, calm down," Kakashi said soothingly; despite his shaded worry, he wasn't too concerned quite yet because of his knowledge of his student's intelligence. "She has a plan." Despite this, he was still somewhat disturbed at how quickly she had been captured, and a thought infiltrated his brain like a virus and stuck there, 'At least, I hope she does…'

The sand quickly flowed over the form of the female member of Team 7, and within a minute, she had been completely enveloped by the silicate. The blob bulged a few times briefly, indicating that Sakura was still fighting, before calming down. Gaara raised one of his hands, presumably to initiate a follow up attack, but stopped as the sand just fell to the ground. To the surprise of everyone there, the trapped genin was no longer trapped, as the fallen grains revealed that there was no longer anyone there. Almost simultaneously, the light in Gaara's eyes went out, and his hovering mist of particulate dropped to the ground as his body did the same…

…xXx…

It seemed like only a few seconds had passed before the jinchūriki of the Hidden Sand regained his bearings, but as he came back into consciousness, he was acutely aware of the fact that his body felt extremely sluggish…as if he had been traveling for a week nonstop. Shaking his head to clear away some of the fog in his eyes, he slowly propped himself up and rose to his feet…and his expression dropped into one of pure shock.

He was obviously no longer in the tower in the middle of the Forest of Death, but in the same sense, he had no clue where exactly he had ended up. He could tell that he was in a desert of sorts, with the clear sky and the sand at his feet being a dead giveaway. Directly in front of him and to the left and right were some somewhat tall hills. Perched atop each of them were clusters of cacti. The plants in front of him were all huddled together in one group, while the peripheral flora was in a number of smaller groups.

Gaara turned his head slightly and took notice of the scenery at his rear, different from the other three directions. A steep cliff blocked off that angle, and the rocky crags were devoid of any plant life. He quickly established that he wasn't going to find any clues about where he was by staring at a stone wall, and he turned his head back around.

He recoiled in surprise at the sight. Where there had previously been just sand, there were now a number of desert plants sprouting before his eyes. Arid varieties of the marigold and lily as well as massive cacti burst from the ground from all angles, and before he could even react, he was surrounded by a multitude of oversized plants. The sand master took a tentative step back…and felt an odd pulse in the back of his mind. That caused an instinctive twitch, and in that moment of hesitation, the plants struck. The flowers turned into vines and began to wrap around him slowly, and the cacti began to creep closer.

Gaara opened his mouth to make a remark of some kind, but no words came out. That was likely just as well because he needed his concentration to get out. Noting with annoyance that the sand at his feet wasn't reacting to his call, he instead called on the grains in his gourd and surrounded himself in a shroud, blocking the plants' access to him. Moments later, he expelled the granular substance away from him in the form of numerous pellets, and the plants were immediately shredded by the chakra-hardened projectiles.

However, he didn't even blink twice before the wildlife had been restored as if nothing had ever happened, and the vines and spines began to close in on him, faster than before. He once more wrapped himself in a cocoon of silicate and blasted away the plants, but it did no good, as they reformed almost instantly.

'**Honestly, watching you flounder around like a mere nestling is always quite amusing, but don't you think you should be more worried about the knife at your throat instead?**' Gaara blinked as a foreign voice floated through his mind, and it took a moment for him to recognize to whom the raspy tones belonged.

'Shukaku…' he murmured mentally, and he was rewarded with a feeling of annoyed confirmation.

'**You know as well as I do that I can't stand you, and normally I'd get an endless amount of good out of seeing you act like a helpless child, but even I have some amount of pride,'** the one-tailed tanuki growled. Gaara appeared within the mental construction of his mind standing atop the large mammal's head, and Shukaku rolled his eyes. **'You're inside your mind while being trapped inside your mind,' **he cackled, **'This is priceless! You still don't know what a genjutsu feels like without me helping you out. I'm not even stopping that chick with my sand because you need to be taught a lesson in vigilance!'**

The Kazekage's youngest looked nonplussed for a moment before all of the pieces fell into place. With that realization, he could now feel the slight pressure inside his head more clearly, and he could appreciate the odd, sudden change in scenery that had occurred. 'I guess I still need to work on that…' the stoic redhead mused softly.

'**You've got that right,'** the large tanuki growled, **'I feel like your mother, having to constantly hold your hand and whatnot.'** The giant beast knew that he could usually get a rise out of his host by mentioning his deceased parent, but this time, Gaara's face melted into a soft smile.

'You have a point,' he said, 'I know you don't like me all that much, but ever since Lord Jiraiya fixed my seal, and I've gotten to know you, it's like my mother has been watching over me. I know you don't want to understand, but it's true.'

'**I like it better when you don't talk, you annoying brat,'** Shukaku muttered, but Gaara could tell that the statement pleasantly surprised him, even if it was just a little bit. Lightly shaking his massive head to clear the cobwebs, the jinchūriki had to collect his bearings and hold on until the bijū had stopped. **'I'm tired of all this sentimental crap. Let's get out of here,'** he grumbled, bringing his paws together to start a disruptive chakra flow.

…xXx…

Despite the apparent length of time that had elapsed within Gaara's mind, only a few seconds had gone by in the real world. When Sakura had disappeared, three copies of the pinkette had appeared, surrounding her opponent from about five yards out in tentative defensive positions. They watched their collective opponent carefully for a few moments, watching for any signs of life. With no movement from the Sand genin, two of the normal clones faded away, and the real Leaf kunoichi advanced step by step so that she was standing behind him. Once more, Sakura took a moment to establish that her illusion was still holding firm, and finding no issue with the chakra flow between the two competitors, she continued with her plan.

Bringing both kunai forward, she slowly crossed them in front of Gaara's throat in an X-pattern, and thankfully the sand did not react in any sort of defensive manner. She then raised the pointer and middle fingers on each of her hands and began to cycle her chakra to disrupt the illusion. "Proctor, I think I've won the ma…" she began to exclaim triumphantly.

BOOM! Gaara's gourd suddenly exploded into a shapeless mass of sand that repelled Sakura and sent her flying back a few feet. She was stunned and barely had time to react enough to throw her body out of the way of another mass, this one resembling a sandy paw. "I…I didn't do that, did I? I didn't dispel the illusion yet!" Haruno stammered to herself, in confusion.

"That was all me." The green eyes of the Leaf competitor momentarily left the silicate hands floating in front of her and shifted to the Kazekage's son, who was now standing on his feet and lightly shaking his head. "Anyone else, and you would have likely won," he continued, "Unfortunately for you, I have an inherent method of chakra disruption that makes me next to immune to all but the strongest techniques. The fact that you managed to capture me for as long as you did shows how skilled you are at weaving illusions."

"Thanks…?" Sakura said skeptically, wondering why the normally silent fighter was choosing to be so chatty today.

In nary a second, Gaara raised his arms slightly, and the paws floating in the air above the pink-haired illusionist returned to his side. Instead of remaining in their disconnected form, the sand began to meld over its controller's arms and hands, forming into two massive gauntlets that were shaped, unbeknownst to many of the observers, like the hands of Shukaku. "Shall we continue?" he asked his opponent, though he was relatively sure of the answer before he even posed the question.

Sakura shakily rose to her feet, and for a moment, the three other members of Team 7 believed that she was going to try to fight, and Naruto began to voice some kind of opinion in opposition to that. However, as Sasuke slapped him upside the head, she simultaneously returned her knives to their holsters and smiled sadly. "I'm glad I at least gave you somewhat of a challenge," she said, "but the only people here that could beat you are probably just my teammates." The defeated genin turned to face Genma and added, "I forfeit, proctor. He's got me beat in every single aspect of this fight."

Gaara nodded and released the sand, letting it reform into his gourd as he nodded at his opponent in a show of respect and returned to his siblings. Sakura let out a breath of relief that she didn't know she was holding and did likewise. She took her time making her way up the stairs and to her friends and teammates. For some reason, she had been expecting a negative reaction from them, but the actual result was quite the opposite.

"Good job out there!" Naruto enthused, bouncing over to meet her and giving her a big hug. Sakura was most definitely shocked at his behavior and gave him a wide-eyed look of surprise.

"What are you talking about?" she said, pushing off of him as Sasuke and Kakashi made their way over in a much more muted manner. "I had no chance against that guy and I had to forfeit."

"But you did catch him under a genjutsu, and for someone like him, that's not an easy task," the grey-haired jōnin responded, "Don't be mad at what you couldn't do, be proud of what you were able to accomplish."

"I guess…" she said, still looking like she wasn't completely in agreement.

Sasuke continued to walk past and propped one leg up on the railing, preparing to enter the arena. He took one look back at his pinkhaired teammate and spoke up, catching her attention, "You did fine, Sakura, okay? Don't worry about it too much. You fell prey to a similar problem that the Waterfall girl's brother did. In a team setting, your skills would have been evident. Don't let this discourage you." Leaving her to be shocked at the rare compliments from the Uchiha teen, he leapt into the arena as Chōji did the same.

To his credit, the burly Akimichi genin had a rueful grin on his face. "I have a feeling that this won't be a long fight, but I'm not going to go easy on you just because I'm outmatched," he stated, gently lowering his body into a ready stance.

"I wouldn't expect anything else," the Uchiha heir replied, showing a similar smile. Genma gave them the indication to start, and the bigger of the two fighters took the initiative.

"Bubun Baika no Jutsu!" Chōji roared, pounding his fists together. Both of his hands and forearms ballooned to five times their previous size, but the growth hadn't even stopped before his massive paws began to weave signs. "Taijū Dōryōgeki (Body Weight Momentum Reversal)!" he shouted…and disappeared from view.

Sasuke's eyes lit up with his crimson Sharingan, and he was barely able to throw his body away from a massive fist, which smashed into the concrete no more than a second after the Uchiha's form had left that space. Skipping back a few more steps, he was forced to avert his head to dodge a right hook and then pull his gut in to avoid a left uppercut.

"Well, this is somewhat unexpected…" Shikamaru drawled, his eyes slightly wider than usual, signifying his interest in the fight and his friend's abilities.

"When did Chōji get so fast?" Kiba asked in confusion, "Wasn't he always one of the slowest at the academy?"

"Normally, he's about the slowest person I've ever met," Keishi said, drawing some looks of ire from his pupils. He waved them off and continued, "You know it's true, don't give me that face." Ino continued to frown, but Shikamaru just shrugged and turned his attention back to the fight. "Anyways, his fighting style does have an inherent slowness to it, but we found a technique that can raise his speed at the cost of some of the calories that he stocks on."

"But that means there's a limit to how long he can use it, right?" Shino queried, almost immediately noting the problem with the special move.

"Maybe less of one than a normal person would have, but you're right," the Sarutobi jōnin agreed, "He can last for about a minute or two before he has to disengage the calorie burn."

Sasuke was running for his life and doing the best that he could to avoid the massive, swinging fists trying to smash him, but his Sharingan could only help him so much, and he had sustained a number of injuries taking glancing blows from his village mate. The frustration was beginning to slow even on his normally calm features as he growled, "Okay, this is getting somewhat tedious." Dodging another fist, he used the large expanse of skin to push off and create a little space for him to use. He quickly weaved his favorite handseals and put his hand up to his mouth. "Katon – Gōkakyū no Jutsu (Fire Style – Grand Fireball Technique)!" A massive ball of flames erupted from his lips and swept towards his opponent, who began to skip backwards.

"Nice try, but I'm not falling for your tricks, Sasuke!" the chubby genin grinned. His arms shrunk back to a normal size as his body bloated in similar proportions, and the now bulbous young man wrapped his limbs around his body and began to rolls. His voice emanated from the rolling ball, saying "Nikudan Sensha (Human Bullet Tank)!" as he began to dart away from the flames, zooming around the arena.

"You're certainly one to be talking about tricks," the Uchiha genin smirked as he took a breath and unleashed another rolling surf of fire, trying to catch his opponent in a moment of sluggishness. Unfortunately, he was still a step behind, as Chōji's technique kept his speed up.

Suddenly, the rolling tank took a sharp cut and charged straight at the dark-haired youth. The velocity of the massive body was too much for Sasuke to counter fully with only his fire, and he had no choice but to roll out of the way as his opponent rumbled by.

As he quickly got to his feet, he took note of the trajectory of Chōji's body. Due to the nature of his family's techniques and the added speed granted by the move he had used earlier, he really wasn't able to move at the exact moment that he would have liked, and the astute warrior's eyes narrowed as he considered the possibilities.

The large Akimichi eventually righted himself, though he scraped against the wall and briefly lost some of his momentum. Before long, he charged against at Sasuke, and the smaller of the two was forced to think of some type of plan. Because of the lack of time to think, he eventually just spewed out some flames in an effort to slow him down, and it didn't do anything worth mentioning. The spherical genin merely blew through the wall of heat, though the Uchiha youth briefly caught a glimpse of a sort of bounce in the movement of his opponent before he had to throw his body out of the way once more.

Chōji continued to roll, and he now had the larger half of the arena in front of him, meaning he didn't have to turn as abruptly and giving the calmest member of Team 7 a little extra time to think. Luckily, he had a plan, as long as luck was on his side.

The larger of the two competitors eventually wheeled back around and charged once more at the smaller speck on the arena floor. Sasuke began to gather his chakra once more and weaved a new string of handseals, shouting "Katon – Ryūka no Jutsu (Fire Style – Dragon Fire Technique)!" His aim seemed to be a bit off because the new wider and deeper wave of fire engulfed the ground right in front of him instead of the space above it.

Moments later, the meat tank hit the area, and the heat forced him to rise off the ground, with Sasuke's face erupting into a triumphant smirk. Chōji immediately fell out of his round shape and began to flail around as he flew or floated through the air.

Lee was the first to notice what was happening, and Guy figured it out soon after. "Look at that…" the normally excitable genin muttered, "I only did it once…"

"Thus is the power of the Sharingan," the boisterous jōnin replied, grinning at his rival Kakashi briefly before turning his attention to the conclusion of the fight.

Sasuke launched from the ground and dealt a devastating rising kick to Chōji's chin before he could react to defend, and the bulky warrior flew further into the air. His body deflated as he rose above all of the observers, and he tried to pull his palms together to reengage his hand enlargement technique.

"Sorry, but this fight is mine, Akimichi." The calm but confident tone of the Uchiha youth froze the trapped genin, as it came from right in his shadow. "I feel somewhat bad for stealing Lee's Kage Buyō (Shadow of the Dancing Leaf), but I needed something different to get you out of your element." 

"I'm not done yet, Sasuke!" Chōji exclaimed, and one of his hands grew slightly and waved vaguely behind him, but his opponent was one step ahead. As the two reached the apex of their ascent, Itachi's brother caught the fist and used the momentum to drive his leg into his large classmate's gut, eliciting a grunt of pain and driving him back towards the ground. The black-haired genin quickly caught up and punched him a few more times and followed up with another slicing kick right as he hit the ground. The large young man crashed into the concrete and groaned as the drain of his earlier technique caught up with him, and his strength left him completely.

Shikamaru sighed in defeat. "Well, at least he gave it his best shot."

"His best shot?" Ino asked skeptically, "Sasuke dominated him. He didn't give him much of a shot at all."

"Against someone as strong as that guy…" and the lazy genin jerked his head towards the arena, "…I think he did just fine. I wouldn't have lasted anywhere near as long as Chōji did."

"Well, duh." The Nara heir raised an eyebrow at his teammate's response, and she elaborated further, "You would have given up before the fight even started, just to spare yourself the time and effort." Shikamaru found no fault with that assessment and shrugged noncommittally, enraging Ino even further.

Genma strolled over and took one look at Chōji's exhausted form. "Looks like Uchiha Sasuke is the winner of the last match," he drawled, as both he and the victor offered a hand to the weak strongman. He gladly accepted their help, and the two competitors shared a handshake. The proctor raised his voice to address everyone present. "Will all of the available competitors and jōnin leaders please come to the arena floor? The Hokage and Kazekage will give a brief summation to end this first round of the finals."

There was a loud clattering as the masses of ninja all proceeded down to make their way down to the arena. A few, such as the hot-blooded Guy and Lee and the impatient Naruto, chose to leap over the railing, while the other Leaf jōnin were much more muted and took their time. Shikamaru helped Shino and Kiba down the stairs, since neither were completely well just quite yet, and Neji followed behind with a pensive look. Sakura, Ino, and Hinata also took their time, choosing to chat amongst themselves, but they sped up upon seeing Tenten wobble out of the entrance to the medical bay with a tired smile on her face. Kabuto was conspicuously absent, apparently having left the arena soon after the abrupt conclusion of his match.

Kankurō and Temari chose to walk with Baki, while Fū literally flew down to the floor. Her brothers went with the stairs simply because Tarumi was helping Hisen carefully navigate his injuries, and they did not appear to have a teacher. The group of Sound ninja waited until everyone else had left before taking their turn, and all of the others steered clear of them.

The Hidden Leaf clan council also took their time for the most, though in the case of the elders it was more due to age than anything else. Most of the parents and clan leaders casually walked down the staircase to the floor, and the elders followed after a few extra seconds of careful descent. Finally, the two Kage brought up the rear and shuffled their way to the front of the adult crowd and cast their gaze on the collective of genin competitors and jōnin squad leaders.

"First of all, I want to congratulate all of those genin who competed here today. We were all treated to some fantastic fights, and I know that I saw a number of potential candidates from all of the villages that would make fantastic chūnin," Minato said happily, scanning the group slowly as he made sure to make eye contact with every competitor. "I'm sure that many of you are anxious to return to the village and some semblance of civilization after being in Training Ground 44 for the past week…"

He was forced to pause for a moment as a couple of the more vocal genin began to mutter their agreement with his statement. In particular, the Hokage caught sight of his son crying in happiness, likely because of a lack of Ichiraku Ramen, as well as a few of the females looking pleased to get out of the somewhat dirty and grungy forest environment. Having gone through a similar ordeal back when he did these exams, he let the grumbles draw out for a few seconds before clearing his throat. The genin quickly shut their mouths, and he continued with his speech, "…as I was saying, for the Hidden Leaf genin, you can return back home, and our visitors can return to their lodgings as soon as we're done here. The finals will be held a month from today in the Hidden Leaf's main outdoors event arena, and all competitors that are no longer competing are welcome to attend." Taking a deep breath, he turned his head slightly and looked towards Hayate, who nodded briefly at his station before continuing to type. "We'll now reveal the matches for the next round of the finals. For all of the participants still in the running for the tournament, please pay attention to the matchups."

The sickly jōnin hit one key, and a bracket appeared on the screen, showcasing the matchups for the final round.

**Uchiha Sasuke**

**vs.**

**Gaara**

**Nara Shikamaru**

**vs.**

**Rock Lee**

**Karin**

**vs.**

**Dosu Kinuta**

**Temari**

**vs.**

**Zaku Abumi**

**Kanchū Fū**

**vs.**

**Hyūga Neji**

Naruto noted with no small amount of glee that his name was at the very end, listed with no opponent, and his suspicions were confirmed as his father spoke up once more, "Due to the match between Aburame Shino and Kanchū Hisen being declared a draw, there are an uneven number of remaining contestants, so Uzumaki Naruto has received a bye for the first round."

"I call BS," Sasuke muttered blandly, and the blonde began to poke him in blatant smugness.

"You call it BS, I call it pure luck," he purred, "You're just annoyed that you have to face Gaara in the first round." The excitable genin pounded his friend on the back hard, earning a glare. "Don't you worry, I'll be cheering you on from the audience while I sit back and enjoy a nice break."

"I wouldn't be so complacent, Naruto…" Minato said somewhat sternly, "…and this goes for all of the other competitors as well. Just because you know whom you'll be facing doesn't mean you can ignore preparations for possible later opponents. Time permitting, we will hold as many matches as we can in a given day, so some of you will likely have to battle twice in one day." He let that sink in for a few moments before looking to his foreign equal. "Do you have anything to add, Lord Kazekage?"

The older redhead shook his head slightly. "Nothing relating to the exams, but I would like to request that my children have dinner with me at the Blossoming Oak later tonight after they clean up and rest. Is that okay?" he asked the three. Temari and Kankurō both shrugged and nodded their consent, while Gaara remained stoic, refusing to answer either way.

"Alright, then." The Hokage looked at the crowd once more and raised his voice. "If there are no further questions, you are dismissed for the month. The best of luck in your training."

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! Hope you enjoyed the second round of the Chūnin Exams! I can guarantee the final round will be much shorter, so don't worry about that too much.

Also, forgive me for the use of the dub nickname for Lee, but it just flows and sounds better to me.

**Review Responses:**

**windwarrior234: **I left Karin's abilities strictly ambiguous, since we admittedly don't have that much information about her from canon and I just like keeping secrets. Takumi is an OC because this was started _just_ before the timeskip Chūnin Exam arc, but I think I accidentally nailed Fū's personality just right, and I'm glad you enjoy both of them! I'm still deciding where I want Zaku to go, but my goal is to give Tenten some much-needed redemption throughout the course of the story. As for Kabuto's "poke," don't read too much into it for now. It's not all that relevant for the time being.


	20. (Exam Interlude 1) Chapter 19

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Thoroughly exasperating everyone with his goofiness, Lee finally got his chance to fight against Kankurō. One of the better duels up until that point, the swift student of Might Guy had a few problems trying to get around the puppeteer's defensive Sanshōuo, but eventually, he managed to destroy the armored wooden amphibian and force his opponent to surrender. The next match pitted Sakura against Gaara, a pairing that had all of her team somewhat concerned considering the strength of the Hidden Sand jinchūriki, but she surprised everyone with how far she managed to push him before being forced to surrender. Finally, the last match pitted the two remaining fighters in Sasuke and Chōji against each other, and they provided an entertaining end to the duels before the Uchiha youth managed to come out on top. As all of the competitors gathered, the two Kage gave some ending remarks as well as the pairings for the third round before dismissing the competitors for the month.

**AN:** Hopefully you enjoy the change of pace. Remember, every time you consider submitting constructive reviews but don't, a puppy cries in sadness.

**(Exam Interlude) Chapter 19 – Taking a Break! The Trials of Love!**

**A Few Days Later**

Naruto lay face up in his bed, staring at the ceiling much like he had been for about the last two or three hours and for the last few days…honestly, he had lost track of time at that point. His clothes had been shucked off unceremoniously the night before and laid on the floor at the foot of his bed, and he wore only a t-shirt and boxers as he adjusted his arms, crossed behind his head. Likewise, his backpack had fallen from its propped up position by the door, spilling a few empty containers and water bottles. After returning with his parents, he had choked down his dinner and stumbled up to his room after giving his mother a hug and kiss goodnight, promptly passing out as soon as he hit the sheets. He had followed a similar pattern over the next few days. He would go out to train with either his dad or some Shadow Clones (depending on his father's availability), work with his teammates in the afternoon, and then return home for dinner before passing out in bed.

Now, fully rested, his thoughts were not on the fights ahead at all, despite his lack of a first round opponent. Normally, despite his reputation as somewhat of an impulsive fighter, he would try to size up each of his potential foes so he was somewhat prepared for the fight, but the amount of time before the fight as well as other things had his thoughts all tangled up.

One thing in particular was completely occupying all of his mental processing power currently, and no matter how many times he rolled the topic over in his head, he couldn't come to a satisfactory answer as to how to deal with this particular issue. Because of the nature of the problem, he had even blocked Kurama out from helping him, which led to the unfortunate side effect of being stuck in extreme silence but also prevented any sarcastic or caustic suggestions being throw his way.

Having been like this for almost three hours, he finally grew tired of his lack of progress. The blonde youth rolled over a few times until he could stick his arm out and grab his discarded pants. After fumbling around for a moment or two, he found his phone and began to punch at it, sending messages out to both Sasuke and Sakura. He rolled back onto his back and stared at the ceiling for a few more minutes until he heard two successive 'dings' emit from his cell. He pulled the device up to his face, and seeing their confirmation, he finally rolled his way out of bed and towards the shower.

Ten minutes later, Naruto jogged down the stairs and entered the kitchen and living area to find an empty house. His eyes caught a glimpse of a piece of paper lying on the table. He walked over and picked it up to read it.

_Naruto,_

_Your father and I became aware of an issue that needs to be tended to. Normally I wouldn't get involved, but this particular problem requires services that only I can provide. As such, I will be going out of the village for a few days, and I should be back by the end of the week, if not earlier. Try not to burn the house down; I know how you and Minato get when I'm not around and someone needs to be fed._

_Love,_

_Mom_

Chuckling a little at the jab at his father's lackluster record in the kitchen, the blonde genin set the note down on the table and pulled out his cell phone to shoot his dad a quick message about what he was doing with the afternoon. With that, he ducked out of the house, locked up, and went on his way.

**Elsewhere in the Hidden Leaf Village**

Standing in the shadow of one of the taller buildings in the center of the village, a solitary figure gazed out at the town he had once called home. Orochimaru was by no means a contemplative soul, and anyone looking at his expression could tell that he held no sort of connection with the Hidden Leaf Village outside of a burning hatred, but even he couldn't repress a small sigh of longing as he remembered his younger years as a genin and chūnin.

His eyes caught some movement nearby, and he turned his head slightly to regard Yakushi Kabuto, who jumped up onto the third story ledge that he had been standing on to join him in his reverie. "You look like you're enjoying yourself," the medic turned traitor commented glibly, taking a moment to admire the view as well, "You're not having second thoughts about this plan of action, are you?"

"Don't be ridiculous," the serpent Sannin muttered in reply, turning to regard his younger counterpart, "Once I was passed by for the position of Hokage, I ceased to have any sort of desire or connection related to this place. My old teacher is dead, my old friend Jiraiya poses no immediate threat to me, and past that, anyone with any connections to me is either dead or safely under my employ as an associate or mere tool."

"Ah yes, the famed Professor of the Hidden Leaf Village," Kabuto murmured. "Shame that he perished in such a way that rendered him out of our reach."

The long-haired snake shook his head slightly. "It matters not to me. I ceased to see him as a mentor once I surpassed the bounds of the human body, and there is not any particular reason for me to want this village destroyed."

"That's good," his junior said lightly, "Despite some of the more annoying presences here, it is a pleasant enough place to live."

"Then you had better wrap up your business here," Orochimaru replied silkily, "Even though I don't wish for the destruction of this village, perhaps as I might have in another time and place, it is still vital that we complete our assignments in a quick an efficient manner."

The bespectacled genin shrugged with a slight smirk on his face. "I agree with you one hundred percent." Arcing his back slightly, he decided to change the topic at hand. "Since you mentioned them earlier, may I ask how are those tools of yours' are coming along? I trust that they are cooperating to an acceptable degree?"

Orochimaru's face also broke out in a mild grin at that, his slit eyes continuing to rake over the buildings of the Hidden Leaf Village. "Ah, yes, _those two_." His expression grew mildly disturbing as his eyes began to leer at a point many miles away. "As you're well aware, when I searched out and found those two, they were less than helpful, and the…_condition_…of the more important of the two is somewhat distressing, to say the least."

"How so?" the medic queried.

"You've been here in the village for awhile, so you haven't had the opportunity to observe either of them all that carefully, but the one we had been hoping would be of use in curing our dear friend has apparently been stricken with a psychological condition which forbids her from assisting to an acceptable degree in any type of intensive surgery."

"That doesn't sound promising. Do you need me to leave and help to convince her?"

The rogue shook his head slowly. "That shouldn't be necessary. I conjured up an incentive that had her working almost instantly, and we were afforded the luxury of the medical ailment being one that didn't require any sort of extensive surgical procedure. After some convincing on my part and a little simple blood workup, she was able to isolate the problem rather quickly and administer the correct medication."

Kabuto looked impressed despite himself. "Really? That's remarkable. Even I wasn't able to find the least bit of a clue." He then realized what that sounded like and quickly added, "Of course, let me apologize for letting you down, my Lord. If I had been better at my job, you wouldn't have had to have gone to so much trouble…"

Orochimaru waved off his apology. "Don't be ridiculous. Your value to me far exceeds hers. To be fair, I likely would have ended up doing something similar to this before too long anyways. You have nothing to fear from me in terms of job security. Having her in our…_employ_…is nothing more than a luxury that would have occurred in the near future." He paused to take a deep breath of fresh air before turning his head back to look at his junior. "Anyways, our associate is nearly back to one hundred percent and should be ready within the week. Our plans shouldn't be hindered too much."

The gray-haired genin breathed an almost imperceptible sigh of relief and moved on. "What about the other one? The one that we found travelling with the target? Has she been of any use?"

The snake inclined his head as he recalled the other of the two 'guests' that he was entertaining. "Ah, yes, her. I had almost forgotten about her until I went to check on things back in the village. To answer your question, she hasn't been useful in terms of intelligence outside of being an excellent tool of persuasion for her master, but…on the other hand, her value as a tool of leisure has been invaluable…" He turned his head slightly, and there was no mistaking the glint of pleasure in his eyes.

Kabuto chuckled slightly upon seeing and hearing that. "I can imagine. How are preparations proceeding for later this month?"

"Well, once the Sound Five is back up to full strength, they will rendezvous with us here in a few days prior to the start of the third round. I think we will be able to sufficiently keep them sheltered using our agents here and the information we received from our associate so that they can be adequately prepared for action."

"You saw my preparation of one of the targets, and I believe you were able to prepare the other, correct?" Kabuto asked for confirmation.

"Yes, I was…" Orochimaru's face turned slightly sour recalling that event, "…though I had a much harder time than you did, seeing as your job was handed to you on a silver platter."

"Just as long as it's completed, my Lord," the genin retorted lightly, "There shouldn't be any problems, then." As if a light bulb had popped on over his head, his expression lit up, and he began to dig around for a scroll. "Speaking of problems, here are the blueprints you requested. Your intel was right on the money. Just had to temporarily disable a few guards right before their shift change, sneak into the archives, and slip back out before they woke up." The traitorous Leaf ninja handed over the scroll to his superior, who opened it and activated the seal inside. A puff of light smoke revealed the aforementioned blueprints, and Orochimaru regarded them with a thinly veiled look of pure glee.

"Excellent," he purred, "This is great work. At a suitable time, we will meet with our associates and plan the best method of attack. I will likely be stuck in meetings leading up to the finals, so it will be your responsibility to discuss any tactical maneuvers with the Sound Five upon their arrival in the village. At this rate, little should stand between us and our target. All we need is the same level of predictability that the Fourth Hokage has afforded us so far, and we will be golden."

Kabuto nodded in confirmation. "I understand."

He bowed once but did not move, as if he wanted to say something further. The serpent Sannin raised an eyebrow and asked, "Is there something else?"

"If you don't mind me asking a more personal question, yes," Yakushi replied. Receiving a brief hand wave of approval, he continued, "May I ask what your plans are with Hyūga Neji? As I recall, he was not your primary target, or even your secondary target, for the curse seal."

"Ah yes, my newest puppet." Orochimaru's eyes locked onto a certain part of the residential area of the village, and it was immediately obvious to his assistant that he was gazing at the Hyūga mansion. "The damn Kyūbi brat interfered with both of my plans, or else this would have been a lot easier."

"That's right," Kabuto mused, remembering some of the things he had overheard throughout the course of the second round, "I believe that Uchiha Sasuke caught some sort of bug the day before entering the Forest of Death, so his teammates sped through the exam so he could rest for a few days."

"And it was dumb luck that Uzumaki Naruto showed up where and when he did after his training," the taller man hissed, clenching his fist in anger and slightly crumpling the blueprints. Realizing what he had done, he quickly released his hold and banished the documents back into the scroll before taking a calming breath of air. "No matter," he exhaled, returning his gaze to the Hokage Monument with a touch of ire, "He may not have the pure potential or the bargaining power of the other two, but I can definitely work with such a prideful and purely gifted shinobi such as him."

"That's all then," Kabuto stated in conclusion, "I will be waiting for communication about any meetings from you." The Sannin nodded once, and his agent disappeared into the wind. Orochimaru chose not to leave immediately and instead continued to sweep his eyes over the place he once called home.

…xXx…

Ichiraku Teuchi walked out of his small kitchen area, his arms laden with bowls of steaming hot ramen. A former chūnin who had promising skill, a tragic accident had ended his career before it had even truly began, and like many who were forced to the sidelines early in their lives, he chose a new living. Luckily, he was quite the prodigy when it came to the culinary arts, and ever since the time that the parents of the current generation were genin themselves, he had been serving ninja and civilians alike some of the best ramen in all the land.

Closely behind him, his daughter Ayame followed carrying two more bowls, which she sat down in front of Sasuke and Sakura. Teuchi deposited two of the bowls in his arms in front of Naruto and laid the other normal sized bowl and a smaller bowl of broth in front of Kiba and Akamaru, who had shown up to the stand about five minutes after Team 7 had arrived. The medium sized white dog quickly began to lap happily at the lukewarm chicken broth, while his master slowly broke his chopsticks apart, listening to every word of the conversation occurring in the seats next to him.

The blonde jinchūriki sighed, taking a moment to admire his meal in front of him. "Thanks a lot, old man," he said to the proprietor, though his voice lacked some of the excitement it normally would have carried. "This looks great."

"Not a problem!" Teuchi boomed happily, recognizing the issue but choosing to let the young man's teammates help him out. "Any time for one of my best customers. Enjoy!" He waved and ushered his daughter back into the kitchen, and Naruto replied with a half-hearted flop of his own hand.

As Sasuke and Sakura broke their chopsticks, looking somewhat confused, their teammate despondently whined, "So? What do you guys think? What should I do?" His immediate follow-up was to begin to attack his first bowl of ramen, pork with vegetables, with gusto.

"Why in the world are you asking us?" the Uchiha heir shot back immediately, shaking his head in amazement, "Last time I checked, your relationship status had absolutely nothing to do with the two of us. Man up and deal with it yourself." He began to eat his, chicken in a tomato-based broth, at a much more controlled pace.

"But…but…I have no idea how to ask a girl out!" he spluttered in response, sending a spray of ramen broth over the counter. Sakura threw her arms up to block the mist and immediately wiped them off with a napkin before slapping Naruto over the head, interrupting him in mid-chew.

"Get a hold of yourself, you moron!" she shouted before softening her tone. "Honestly, it's not like you're even telling the truth. You asked me out at least fifty times before I finally told you I wasn't interested…"

Under his breath, the Hokage's son muttered, "More like you beat me up…"

"…and besides, this is not something you either need to freak out about or ask us about. She'll appreciate your honesty more than anything, and I'm pretty sure she'll at least give you a chance," the lone present female finished.

That didn't seem to help all that much, as the despondent youth continued, "But…but…what if she doesn't? What if I look like a fool, or what if she's already got a boyfriend, or what if her dad doesn't approve, or what if…"

"Stop," Sasuke snapped, taking a break from his meal to shake his head briefly, clearing away the Naruto-induced cobwebs that had begun to form and clapping his free hand over his friend's mouth. "Just…stop. You're starting to give me a headache." The calmest member of Team 7 took a moment to slurp up another clump of noodles and chew them slowly before turning his attention fully to the blonde next to him.

"Are you going to calm down if I help you?" He finally asked in a deliberate manner. From the energetic nod, it seemed like there was at least a chance of that happening, so the young Uchiha sighed and released his palm. "Alright then. Let's start from the beginning and see where that takes us. First, why did you want to ask her out? You seem to be coming up with all kinds of excuses to not ask her, so let's start out with why you do want to ask her out." Sakura also paused her slurping to lean in to listen, as did both Kiba and Akamaru.

The blonde looked somewhat taken aback by this sudden reversal of questioning. "Well…she's really nice. We always got along well at the academy…" He trailed off as he tried to think of anything further.

"That's it?" the raven-haired teen said skeptically, "There are plenty of nice girls in this village, and you don't seem to be running after them, do you?"

"No, that's not the only thing!" Naruto said defensively before beginning to gain an ounce of confidence. "She's always treated me with respect, not like some of those other fan girls that chase after us occasionally. She's really skilled and sneaky strong, and she's probably smarte…_almost_ as smart as Sakura." The pinkette's expression grew fearsome, but Naruto's quick save softened her look. "Even though this isn't the primary reason, she is really attractive and keeps in shape. And during our fight, I just felt…_something_…that I hadn't felt before, y'know, like she has something to offer that no other girl I've met has? I just want to get to know her better, that's all."

Throughout his entire monologue, his confidence grew greater with every word, and the expressions of both of his teammates had changed from boredom and exasperation to shock and borderline admiration. Neither of them had heard the normally boisterous and impulsive youth express something so eloquently in the past, and it was shocking to them to hear this for the first time. Even Kiba was suitably impressed, though he refrained from saying anything or drawing attention to himself.

Having finished, Naruto quickly dove back into his ramen, half out of embarrassment, while Sasuke and Sakura recovered from their surprise. They looked at each other, and while Uchiha was more nonplussed, Haruno was looking at her teammate in a much more favorable manner. A few moments later, their faces returned somewhat to normal, though they were obviously still surprised. "Wow, I'm actually impressed, Naruto," the pink-haired kunoichi said slowly, "That was very well thought-out." She took another lump of noodles and began to chew them slowly. "I didn't expect something like that out of someone like you," she murmured through a mouthful of ramen.

"Well, you don't have to say it that way…" the blonde muttered in mild protest, though he looked pleased at the compliment as well.

"Still, though, what are you going to do about it?" the Uchiha added quickly, making sure to press the issue so he could get out of there.

"Ask her out, of course," the blonde replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sasuke waited a moment (for Naruto had finished his meal rather quickly), and seeing no movement, he asked "So…? Go do it."

"Yeah, but how?" the clueless genin queried, drawing expressions of exasperation from all those gathered there.

"You're hopeless, you know that?" Sasuke groaned. He craned his neck and looked down the bar at Kiba, who was sporting a light smirk on his face. "Could you please help him out? You're Hinata's teammate, after all, you should know where she is about this time of day, right?"

"Aww, but it was so much fun watching him struggle," the dog trainer said jokingly, drawing a look of ire from the blonde in question. The shaggy-haired genin slurped up the last of his ramen and propped one of his feet on the footrest of the stool, scratching Akamaru's head. "First of all," he said, capturing Naruto's attention, "If you're worried about what her reaction is going to be, don't. I can say with absolute certainty, and I think your teammates would agree, that she will react positively if you ask her. There is no way she doesn't agree to at least go on a date with you." Both of the other two genin nodded to confirm that statement.

"Wait seriously? Do you guys have inside information or something that I don't know about?"

Kiba shook his head in amused disbelief. "You really are clueless." He stared straight into Naruto's eyes and said, "I'm not going to tell you what to do, but let's just say you will make the day of both Hinata and every person in this entire village if you just go ask her out. Trust me, you'll feel better once you do."

The blonde looked more than a little confused by that statement but chose not to ask for further elaboration. "Well, okay, if you say so. Where would she be right about now?"

The roguish genin indicated for him to wait a second as he dug his phone out of one of the pockets of his jacket, scattering a few dog treats on the ground as he did. Akamaru quickly lapped those up as the lone present member of Team 8 checked his calendar. "What's happening today…?" Kiba scrolled down his list of tasks until he reached the appropriate area. "Oh yeah, today we have a team training session in about an hour and a half, and she usually trains with her family until about an hour before our practices, so assuming there's nothing special happening today, she'll either be at her house or on the way to Training Ground 13."

"Alright, sounds good." Naruto, looking much more energized than before, slapped some change down on the counter to cover the tab of everyone there. "Hey, thanks again, old man!" he shouted into the kitchen.

"Not a problem, my boy!" Teuchi shouted back. Although no one could see it, he and Ayame both looked pleased that their number one customer was back to his old self.

Without waiting a second longer, the blonde shot up and sprinted off down the street. "Wish me luck, guys!" were the last words he threw over his shoulder before disappearing around the block.

Kiba exhaled and stood up. "What a piece of work, but you gotta love his enthusiasm," he muttered to himself with a grin on his face. He glanced at his two remaining former classmates and said goodbye before departing with Akamaru.

"We're stuck with the mother of all idiots on our team," Sasuke muttered, having just finished his bowl of ramen. He looked at Sakura, who had also just slurped up the last of her noodles, and said in a seemingly nonchalant manner, "I have some training with my cousin later this afternoon after he works with his team, but I'm free until then. Want to practice your genjutsu a little until then?"

The pinkette was obviously not expecting that type of request and was taken aback, but she quickly recovered, smiled, and said, "I would love to, thanks!" Thanks to the unexpected generosity of their teammate, all Sasuke had to do was leave a coin or two in thanks before the other two members of Team 7 departed together for a separate training area, both privately happy in their own ways.

…xXx…

Naruto sprinted across town, his heart racing and his excitement at an all time high. 'Alright, I can do this!' he chanted internally, 'I am capable of doing this! Nothing to fear at all! I am a strong, confident…!'

'…**woman?' **The rumbling tone of Kurama emerged in his mind, laced with no little amount of amusement.

Naruto sighed, and a mental projection of himself appeared on the top of the fox's snout. 'Even you can't ruin my good mood, so don't even try?'

'**Sounds like a challenge to me,' **the sarcastic chakra construct snapped playfully, **'Let's see…oh yes, I'd love to hear how exactly you're planning on asking this female out. All I've heard the past few days are your rambling thoughts about Hinata this and Hyūga that. Just ask the damn girl out, please, for my sanity and yours."**

The jinchūriki at least had the sense to look embarrassed. 'Crap, you could hear all of that?' the blonde asked tentatively. After feeling the giant head below him nod in annoyance, he relented. 'Okay, fine, sorry, but this will all be over soon. Just have to find her, and I'll ask her, and then we'll move on with our lives.'

'**Solid plan…'** Kurama muttered sarcastically,** 'Pure genius. In all seriousness, don't say I didn't warn you when you walk up to her and have no idea what to say because you didn't think about it beforehand…"** With that, the massive fox retreated into his host's mind.

That final statement stopped Naruto in his tracks as he stopped to consider his partner's words. To be fair, he had put a considerable amount of thought into why he was doing it, but not really how he would approach the situation when it (or rather, she) was staring him in the face.

Looking up, he noticed that his mental conversation and travels had taken him to the outskirts of the residential area of the Hidden Leaf Village, with the Yamanaka Flower Shop immediately to his left. Seeing that gave him an idea, and he struggled internally for a few moments about the dangers of this decision before deciding to just go for it. He ran inside the store, shouting, "Ino! I need your help with something!"

**Thirty Minutes Later**

Hinata leisurely strolled down the street, a soft smile on her face. Her father and uncle had to cut her normal lessons short due to an unexpected clan council meeting, so she had been dismissed earlier than usual. Because she really didn't have any plans until her normal team training, she had decided to wander around the village to kill some time.

As she made her way towards the center of town and away from the suburban part of the village, the smell of cinnamon rolls wafted under her nose. Stopping in the middle of the street, the thin heiress closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, taking in the sweet scent of her favorite snack.

Sighing contentedly, she opened her eyes and looked around for the source of the tasty treat. Opposite the Yamanaka Flower Shop, which was in front of her to her left, was a small café called Higher Grounds, and one of the waitresses was just setting out a tray of freshly cooked and glazed cinnamon rolls in the display case. The older brunette looked up and caught a glimpse of the white-eyed beauty staring, so she smiled and gestured to her to come over. Not one to pass up her favorite snack, Hinata quickly hurried over with a small grin on her face.

Five minutes later, she was reclining back in the shade of a low hanging umbrella, sitting at one of the outdoors tables with a hot roll and a small cup of coffee in front of her. Picking up the sweet morsel, she took a small bite of it and immediately sighed in happiness at the perfect taste. Setting down the bun and grasping the handle of her coffee mug, she was just about to take a sip of the amber liquid when a familiar voice caught her attention. Looking up, she saw Naruto and then Ino, dressed in her clerk apron, emerge from the latter's family store. She ducked her head and pulled the cup up, remaining in the shade as she silently observed the proceedings.

"Alright, now say it one more time!" Ino was saying, almost as if she was drilling the other blonde. "You're not going to get this unless you are one hundred percent confident in yourself and your ability to pull this off!" She wiped the stern expression from her face and adopted a look of surprise and thinly veiled hope, looking at her acquaintance with slightly widened eyes.

Naruto nodded energetically. "I can do this, okay…alright…here we go…" He puffed up his chest, and his expression grew much more confident as he said slowly but surely, "So, Ino, I was wondering if you would like to go on a date with me? How about this weekend, just the two of us, dinner and a movie?"

"Oh, I'd love to!" the young woman simpered, giving off a look of exaggerated glee. "Thank you so much!"

Naruto nodded happily and gave her a wide grin. "Great! Then I'll see you then?"

"Of course! What time were you thinking?"

"How about six and we'll go from there?"

"Perfect!"

Hinata was crushed by this whole scene and was about to bail on listening to anything further when the follow-up statement by the attractive Yamanaka heir saved her hopes. "Excellent job," she stated, her tone once more changing from the gushing girl to the teaching figure, "Excellent confidence, good job being decisive but not bossy, and perfect level of enthusiasm. Nice snappy answers to appointment establishment, not too early but not too late. An overall great job. She won't stand a chance if you do exactly what you just did." Her 'student' looked rather pleased with himself, but his 'teacher' wasn't done with him yet. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to push the envelope a little. "Speaking of which…won't you please at least give me a hint who _she_ is?"

"No way," Naruto replied immediately, waving his hands in protest. "I'm thankful that you agreed to help me and all, but I know that if I tell you who she is, the entire village will know ten minutes later, and that's the last thing I want to happen."

"Fine, fine," Ino muttered in defeat, quickly snapping her phone shut behind her back and stashing it in a pocket before crossing her arms in a pouting pose. "Just because I know how much you want this to work, I'll keep out of it. But I expect you to tell me the instant you ask her, okay? I want details and a blow-by-blow report so I can grade your performance"

The Hokage's son couldn't object to that and said as much. "I think I can make that happen. Sorry for sucking up your time like that. I hope I didn't cause any trouble."

The flower keeper waved him off. "Not at all. I love distractions when they come to matters of love and gossip." Still, seeing an opportunity, she added, "Though, if you feel bad about it, I wouldn't object to a little help to get me back on schedule before heading off to training later this afternoon…"

The energetic jinchūriki quickly replied sheepishly, "I would love to, but I have to go meet my godfather later today. He's coming back to the village for the first time in awhile, and he said that there was something important that we should discuss with my dad. I was going to meet with him after looking for…uh…for…my crush, but I got sidetracked talking with you and I don't think I have any more time." He paused for a moment, and an idea came into his head. "But…I don't think you'd mind a few Shadow Clone helpers, right?" He quickly made the handseals for his favorite technique, and there were soon four Narutos standing in front of the flower shop. "Okay, you guys," the original said to the duplicates, "Help Ino out for the rest of the afternoon, okay?" All of them saluted, and the real Uzumaki waved goodbye to Ino before darting back off towards the center of the village and his father's office.

The Yamanaka heiress quickly began issuing orders to the clones as the group of four marched back into the flower shop. Only once they were safely back inside did Hinata breath a sigh of relief. She took a moment to knock back a large sip of coffee before nibbling on the rest of her cinnamon roll and washing it down with the rest of the caffeinated beverage. "What was that all about?" she wondered softly, "Is Naruto interested in dating someone from our class?" She stood up and began to wander away, barely remembering to leave some money on the table before slowly making her way in the general direction of the training field where she was meeting her team. "Does that mean he didn't feel my emotions in our fight earlier?" Her eyes began to teem with tears, but she quickly shook them away as a wave of confidence overtook her. "I need to be more proactive. I'll try to find Sakura after our team training, and I might also ask Kiba about it too." With her mind made up and her resolve emboldened once more, she set off on her own personal mission.

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! Hope you enjoyed the different type of chapter.

**Review Responses:**

**Sadness…there are none…**


	21. (Exam Interlude 2) Chapter 20

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** A few days after the conclusion of the second round of the Chūnin exams, Orochimaru and Kabuto met to discuss plans for some type of mission or plan involving the Hidden Leaf Village. Involved in that conversation were the healing of some important associate within Hidden Sound; the acquisition or kidnapping of two females, one of whom had some level of medical expertise that enabled her to figure out this associate's disease; and the exchange of some blueprints for a structure vital to Orochimaru's plan. Meanwhile, having been troubled by this for most of the past week, Naruto met up with his teammates (and Kiba and Akamaru, who were conveniently there as well) to ask them how he should go about asking Hinata out. All three told him to man up and just ask her, with Kiba adding that he had nothing to worry about but not explaining why. Naruto departed to find her but a conversation with Kurama led him to Ino's, where he asked for practice in asking a girl out before leaving for a meeting with his father and Jiraiya. Unbeknownst to him, Hinata witnessed the entire episode and became curious about the target of Naruto's affections, resolving to find out who she was.

**AN:** This is a direct continuation of the last chapter, but that's only for the first third or so. Should be a new mission or two forming by the end of it, ones that I think you'll like. See you on the other side.

**(Exam Interlude) Chapter 20 – Learning the Rasengan! The Continued Toils of Youth!**

**A Few Minutes Later**

After stumbling her way through the village, lost in thought as she tried to figure out who in the world would be the type of girl that Naruto would want to ask out, Hinata finally arrived at her team's customary training ground and collapsed on a bench. This particular area was styled after an ornate garden, full of plants both native and foreign to the Fire Country, and for that reason it was well suited to the strengths of Team 8. Resembling a luscious forest, the abundance of smells and plants forced sensory-strong ninja to stretch the limits of their abilities in order to succeed in finding their targets. The thick shrubbery also constricted flashy fighting moves, so teams training there were forced to be more careful with their maneuvers. Kiba often griped about having to train there because his Inuzuka-style taijutsu and strong sense of smell were not conducive to use in the cramped quarters and the potent fragrances of the flowers, but Shino and Hinata both found the area pleasant, and in a way calming, just for different reasons.

Thanks to the convoluted afternoon that the Hyūga heiress had experienced up until that point, she arrived much too early, and as such she was forced to sit and wait. Normally she would arrive right on time, a useful product of her upbringing, but of course this particular day was not like a normal one. That allowed her more time to think about the conundrum in front of her. After staring blankly at the wildlife and greenery around her for who knows how long, she finally got down to business. 'So I know that Ino isn't the one he's after, given that she's the one he went to for help,' she began to muse, looking up at the clear blue sky as a few birds flew by. 'It could be Sakura. He has asked her out a number of times…but…I always had the impression that his attraction to her was more of a nagging, playful type of feeling than anything romantic.' The kunoichi paused for a moment as some squirrels ran by, and a soft smile graced her face as she began to absently twist some of her long hair around one of her fingers. 'Maybe it's Tenten…or that girl from Hidden Waterfall…but he's never been around either of them, except for a few moments in the Forest of Death…' Releasing her violet strands, she shook her head to clear all of the random thoughts from her mind, noticing that Kiba, Akamaru, and Shino were approaching, engaged in light conversation. 'I can't do this. I'll just ask them. Hopefully they know something.'

Hinata sat up on the bench, slapping away some of the dirt that had gotten on her clothing as she waited expectantly. The two young men and one dog made their way over to her, ceasing their conversation as they drew near. "Hey, Hinata!" Kiba shouted, waving his hand at her. "What's up? Have a good afternoon so far?" His face contorted into an odd expression as he exchanged a glance with Shino before plopping down next to his teammate on the bench, and the young woman had no idea what to make of that look.

"No…" she replied in confusion, the slow tone of her voice dragging out her negative answer. Reaching over to scratch Akamaru behind the ears, where she knew he liked, she added, "Why? Was I supposed to?"

That seemed to surprise the dog trainer, as he sat back up and looked over at her in shock before catching himself. The brown-haired Inuzuka shook his head briefly to compose his thoughts before replying quickly, "No, no, not anything in particular! Just being a good friend, right Shino?" He desperately looked over at the stoic Aburame for help.

"Being someone who values the relationships with my friends, I don't see anything odd with this," the bug user said softly, his voice muffled as always by his high collar. "We've been together talking for the last thirty minutes or so, and we only wanted to see what you've been doing with your day so far."

Managing to smile at her teammate's usual blunt style of speech, Hinata replied, "Thank you, Shino. Actually, I was hoping the two of you would show up soon. I wanted to ask you both a question about…"

"It's our daily Naruto update, isn't it?" Kiba interrupted with a sly grin on his face. He reached behind his slender friend's back and poked at the tallest of the three, who had sat down on the other end of the bench. "This should be good." He immediately exhaled sharply as the young Hyūga elbowed him in the stomach, and Akamaru yipped a couple of times in his best imitation of a laugh. "Zip it, you traitor," he groaned, falling back into the bench with a pained expression.

"Anyways…" Hinata continued, shooting dirty looks to her right, "I wanted to ask you…if you knew about anyone…that Naruto…was…well…you know…_interested in_…" Her tone slowed drastically as her lack of confidence caught hold, and unbeknownst to her, the two males present exchanged a knowing look behind her back, Shino having been read in to the situation on the way over.

Kiba sighed and leaned forward so his elbows were propping his arms on his knees as he rested his head in his hands. "That's not exactly what I was expecting…" he muttered, telling the truth in an ambiguous manner. He shifted his head and looked at Hinata. "Look, I'm only going to tell you this once, so listen up. I can say with one hundred percent confidence that Naruto currently has his sights set on one person, and that's all I'm saying."

The heiress's white orbs grew wide. "Wait, what?" she exclaimed loudly before clapping her hands over her mouth in embarrassment. Immediately following, she shot questions rapid-fire at him in a much more hushed tone. "How do you know about that? Who is it? Is it Sakura? Tenten? That Waterfall girl? Someone else?"

"Hold on, hold on," Kiba interrupted her by raising his hand, and the rampage by Hiashi's daughter ceased shortly. "Where's this all coming from?"

Hinata squirmed in her seat slightly before standing up and walking forward a few feet. She squatted down next to some flowers and fiddled with them. "I saw him with Ino earlier," she admitted softly, "He was asking her for advice about how to ask a girl out. Said he'd never done it for real before and wanted to be sure he was doing it correctly."

Akamaru's master slapped his head in disgust as the dog whimpered and plodded over to nudge the young woman's leg. "Good lord, I wasn't expecting anything like that out of him…" he muttered, again masking the meaning of his words with the truth.

Unfortunately, he wasn't completely successful, as Hinata caught that statement and immediately ran over to him. "What are you talking about?" she asked frantically, grabbing his jacket and shaking him roughly, "Do you know something? Tell me what's going on!"

Luckily, Shino came to his friend's rescue. He carefully extracted the delicate hands of the Jūken user from Kiba's jacket to give him time to breathe. "Geez, it's like I told her I knew where to find a million bucks for free or something," Inuzuka hissed under his breath before addressing his friend in a louder tone, "Thanks, Shino."

"It's not a problem, though I do think you owe her some kind of explanation," Aburame stated matter-of-factly.

"Fine, fine." The dog tamer shook out the creases in his jacket and stood up. "Listen, Hinata," he said, looking his friend in the eye as he spoke to ensure that she understood completely. "Remember a couple of years ago when I threatened to tell Naruto that you liked him after having to sit through an hour of you telling me how wonderful he was?" The Hyūga girl nodded in embarrassment, remembering that particular incident quite well. "You made me promise that I wouldn't ever try to interfere with you trying to get together with Naruto upon threat to my family jewels, and I've taken that quite seriously over the years because I know that's one of the few threats you would actually follow through on."

The lone female member of Team 8 grew depressed as she realized the implications of that, and she attempted a last ditch effort to get his assistance. "But if I tell you that it's okay this one time…"

"Nope, I'm not budging," was the almost immediate reply, cutting her off in mid speech. Inuzuka had an oddly serious look on his face as he added, "I'm just going to say this: do something about it. You're a big girl, and you can do this. Just conquer your fears, okay? I guarantee you that there's nothing you can do to screw this up." Hinata's face was a suitable mix of surprised and apprehensive after hearing that, and Kiba rolled his eyes at her reaction. "Well don't get all weepy on me," he muttered, walking past her towards the field as he cracked his neck. "I'm just doing what you told me to do. Come on, Akamaru." The white dog barked once and nuzzled Hinata's leg again before trotting off towards his master.

"He's gruff, but he means well…and he has a point." The Hyūga heiress turned her head just as Shino stood up and began to walk away too, hands in his pockets as usual. After taking a few steps, he paused and turned back to face his friend and teammate. "He does raise a good point, though. You'll feel much better after speaking up and making your wishes known, even if the answer may not be the one you want." He turned back and began to walk to where Kiba and Akamaru were beginning to fly around the field, getting their warm-ups in. "You'll probably have some time to think about it, if that makes you feel better. Why, you may ask? I believe we'll have a mission coming up soon, since none of us have any obligation to Chūnin Exam training." With that, he didn't say anything further.

Hinata slowly stood up and thought about that. Sure, that would prolong the amount of time until she saw Naruto next, but it would also give her plenty of time to gather her thoughts. Getting her wits about her sounded like the more preferable option, and she also felt like getting out the village would be good. Her father had been pushing her to get some diplomatic experience, and she could probably bargain with Shisui to travel somewhere to do just that.

Her outlook somewhat brightened, she stretched her limbs out and walked over to her teammates with a smile on her face as she prepared her mind and body their afternoon team session.

…xXx…

As he usually did when he went to visit his father, Naruto burst into the administrative tower of the Hidden Leaf Village with the energy of an invading force and the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. Luckily, the secretary in the lobby and the two guards assigned to the main building were unfazed after years of experience.

The welcome desk was stationed directly in front of the entrance, with a couple of chairs and potted plants scattered around the lobby for anyone who might have to wait for a scheduled meeting. The young lady sitting behind the desk ceased her typing at her computer to smile at Naruto as he darted past her and towards the staircase leading upstairs. The opposite staircase went towards the basement, and it was guarded by a lone ANBU agent, ever the stoic sentry.

Today, Hagane Kotetsu and Kamizuki Izumo were the two present flanking the ascending hall to the upper floors of the tower. The blonde uncharacteristically screeched to a halt when he reached them and took a moment to glare at the guards. "You two are real jerks, you know that?" he grumbled, his ire and their smirks growing at a similar rate. "Trying to get us to bail on the exam before it even started? Don't you have anything better to do?"

"Not really, considering it's our job to weed out the weaklings and imbeciles," the bandaged Kotetsu shot back immediately, grinning like a fox.

"We almost got you, didn't we?" Izumo added, "Just a little bit earlier and you wouldn't even be in the exams right now."

The wild haired chūnin poked his best friend with his elbow. "Hey, remember what Lord Hokage promised us if we had managed to keep him from even starting the exam?" The bandana-wearing ninja nodded in remembrance, while the ignored genin's face began to redden in anger.

"WHAT?" he exploded, his eyes darting back and forth between the two guards frantically. "What do you mean, he promised you something? That's not cool, what the heck…" He trailed off as he saw the devious grins on their faces and began to pout. "You know, I really, really, _really_ don't like you two…" he grumbled as he pushed by them and stomped up the staircase, missing the victorious fist bump that the chūnin shared behind his back.

Ascending a few flights of stairs until he was on the second floor from the top, he exited and stood before a large door, marking the entrance to his father's office. The ANBU agent standing there was a familiar face (as much as one could be), and likewise he recognized the blonde as an approved visitor, so he subtly shifted his stance and allowed the teen to enter. Nodding to the special ops ninja, Naruto gently pushed open one of the large doors and slipped inside, his face immediately breaking out into a large grin.

Seated behind his desk like usual was Minato, with his computer open but off to the side and forgotten for the moment. His normal stack of paperwork was mostly completed, with only a few straggling sheets needing extra attention in a few folders near the computer. His expression was likewise very cheerful, in complete opposition to how he would normally look midway through the afternoon after having to deal with bureaucrats and piles of documents for most of the day.

The cause for that was the individual sitting in one of the chairs directly in front of the desk, and as the whiskered genin walked into the office, that person and Minato both looked up, their faces also bursting into similar smiles. "Well, well, well…look at you!" the visitor exclaimed, standing up to better appraise the new arrival. "All grown up and a ninja now, who would have thought it?"

Naruto ran in and immediately approached the tall, older ninja, who was decked out in an outfit not entirely of Leaf origin. "Hey there, Pervy Sage!" he said happily, shaking the elder gentleman's hand. "What are you doing here?"

The expression of the legendary member of the Sannin turned sour immediately, and Jiraiya adopted a pose familiar to both blondes in the room. "How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?" he exclaimed, only somewhat angry, "Treat your godfather with some respect, huh?"

"I'll stop calling you a pervert when you stop being a pervert…" the younger blonde mumbled, though his expression was still bright as he shook the older man's hand…and immediately regretted it as Jiraiya's face grew uncomfortably close to his.

"And how many times do I have to tell you about that?" the toad master snapped. "I'm not a pervert…I'M A SUP…"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're a super pervert. We've all heard your spiel at least fifty times," Naruto interrupted him before releasing his godfather's hand and moving into another one of the guest seats in his father's office. Minato had a knowing smirk on his face that dissipated into the calm façade of the Hokage once Jiraiya turned around and sat back down in a huff.

"Just like old times, isn't it?" the father said pleasantly, "It's always great to see you, sensei, but shall we get down to business? We can debate your questionable status amongst the women of the Fire Country later; we have more important things to discuss."

"Fine, fine… Ever since you and Kushina shacked up, you've been the biggest spoilsport…" the long-haired legendary ninja muttered, adjusting the massive scroll propped up against the desk before fully turning his attention to the lone genin in the room. Minato merely shrugged, though his son looked a little peeved at that reference. "So…I've heard quite a bit from your father about your performance in the Chūnin Exams up until now, as well as that rather raucous mission in the Wave Country," he continued, "Sounds like you've had quite the christening to your time as a ninja, huh?"

"It's been…interesting…" Naruto admitted slowly, shrugging in indifference, "We've had some fun missions, met some interesting people…learned a lot about friends as well as what occurs outside of the village." He paused for a moment, his face slowly growing tentative as he considered the question he was about to ask. "What do you think of what you've heard?"

"Well, let's just say this - anyone who can change the Demon of the Hidden Mist in the way that you and your team did is not someone to be taken lightly," Jiraiya responded almost immediately, grinning widely. "Boy, oh boy, when I ran across him and his brats a few weeks ago on my way back here…that Kohaku is quite the beauty…damn…"

Minato's son had grown excited hearing about his former opponents, but his expression quickly soured. "Come on, Pervy Sage, can't we have at least one conversation that's normal?" he whined.

"Okay, okay, calm down. I will tell you that they said to send their best along to you. The lovely Kohaku was rather interested in asking about your friend Sasuke, Shiro made sure I knew to tell you that he was ready for a rematch anytime, and I believe Zabuza said to tell you to 'not get killed before he had the opportunity to kill you himself,'" the elder man replied, with a hint of a grin.

"Wow, that's fantastic…what are they doing now?" Naruto asked almost immediately, leaning forward in anticipation. Unfortunately, he was rebuffed just as quickly by a wagging finger.

"Another time, my bratty godson, another time," Jiraiya replied, "It's a long, somewhat convoluted, and somewhat classified tale. We'll save that for when…or _if_ you become a chūnin." He grinned at the veiled jab and the expected reaction, so he dropped some bait. "Anyways, aren't we talking about you? Remember? I thought you wanted to hear what I had to say about your abilities?"

A few moments of silence passed, and even though he looked like he potentially wanted to argue the point, the youngest in the office eventually relented with a sigh. "You're right, you're right." he groaned, briefly looking chagrined before cheering up significantly at the prospect of hearing all about his wondrous powers and exploits. "So what _do_ you think? I'm pretty impressive, right?"

The longhaired legend glanced over at his former student before shrugging nonchalantly. "Well…that's one way to put it. It's impressive you've lasted this long without getting you or your teammates killed, if nothing else."

Naruto's face immediately flattened out in disgust. "What's that supposed to mean?" he spluttered.

His response was to simply reach over and grab something off the Hokage's desk and wave it in the young man's direction. After a moment, the jinchūriki realized that he was holding a bunch of CDs. "Thanks to the wonders of modern technology and a few well-placed cameras for the sake of the Chūnin Exam proctors, I had a chance to watch your fight in person, as well as all of the other matches held in the arena in the Forest of Death," the Toad Sannin explained, placing the discs back down on the table. "Lots of interesting information in those duels. It helped a lot that you were the first one to fight, too; let me have a chance to get your skills in my mind before seeing everyone else. I was overall very impressed with the level of the genin competing in the exams this time around." He paused for a moment to remember his mental notes. "How about…we start with the positives? In terms of speed, I can honestly you had almost everyone beat, with the exception of that Lee kid, and your instincts were rather sharp. Despite that scrawny frame of yours, you pack a decent punch, and your obscenely large well of chakra allows a respectable fluctuation of power in any of your moves."

"Well, but of course…" Naruto began to brag about himself, but he was immediately cut off, as the master of amphibians wasn't done with his assessment.

"Of course, the list of negatives is somewhat longer and more problematic," he drawled, using the aborted sentence to his advantage. As he went down his mental checklist, he ticked off the points on his fingers. "You improvise on the fly well, but you're still way too much like your mother in how much of a hothead you are. Your movements are powerful and quick but clumsy and too discernable for the level you should be at currently. And your chakra control is nonexistent; the only reason your techniques are effective is because you pump so much chakra into a given move that it overwhelms your opponent with brute force."

The younger blonde's expression soured severely after hearing all of this, but his father, ever the calm negotiator, stepped in to defuse the situation. "Son, don't take this too badly," he said softly, "If anything, this gives us an opportunity to boost your abilities to a new level. We've known for a long time that your chakra control isn't the best, and the rest of the problems are fixable. Speaking simply as your parent and not as the Hokage, I would say that of the remaining contestants, you're in the top five, though I won't tell you where just because I don't want you getting a big head. Still, with some work on chakra control and technique you'll be a formidable force in the top percentage of Hidden Leaf genin…and maybe even chūnin."

The annoyed expression on Naruto's face had slowly melted into a rare look of contemplation as he listened to what his father had to say, and when Namikaze was done, his son asked tentatively, "So…what does this mean? Some kind of special, advanced training?" His face grew slightly hopeful at the thought of learning some kind of advanced technique.

Minato's cerulean eyes twinkled in a mischievous light usually only seen in a manner familiar to his wife. "Well…imagine a technique that allows you the ability to improve your chakra control by leaps and bounds as well as force you to refine your hand-to-hand combat skills and offer limitless possibilities of evolution. Something that is exclusive to only a handful of people in the entire world and what you might consider a family legacy. Would you like to learn it?"

He and Jiraiya were aware of the answer before the village leader was finished speaking. The look on the genin's face was purely euphoric as he exclaimed, "Uh, yeah, duh! What is it, Dad?!"

"Why, the Rasengan (Spiralling Sphere), of course." At the same time, Jiraiya reached behind the mahogany desk and dropped a bag of water balloons on the floor. "What do you say we get started, huh?" Again, the answer was obvious as soon as they looked at the face of the youngest in the room.

"Are you kidding me?" the blonde exploded euphorically, "I've been asking you to do that for the past ten years!" He jumped to his feet and began to bounce and skip his way to the door. "Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go!" he said impatiently, ready and raring to go.

Minato chuckled as both he and his former teacher rose to their feet, and the leader of the Hidden Leaf Village pulled out a uniquely shaped, three-pronged kunai from one of the many drawers of his desk. "Naruto…" he said, trailing off and waiting for his son to catch on.

It was a fun process for the two older men to watch. Ten seconds later, the figurative light bulb went off over the young man's head, and he sheepishly shuffled back over to stand at his father's side, placing a hand on his shoulder. Jiraiya shook his head in a mixture of amusement and disbelief as he picked up the sack of water balloons and clapped a large palm on his student's other shoulder.

Moments later, they were standing in Training Ground One, a large expanse of land on top of the Hokage Monument reserved for the leaders of the village, ANBU squadron leaders, and approved visitors only. Set back from the edge of the cliff by about a thousand feet to allow for some scenic viewing space, a row of thick trees blocked off an otherwise flat clearing, filled with a number of large boulders scattered about and the occasional tree. It was easy to see that the battleground was well used, with battle scars from past leaders and guests immediately obvious, and the thought of who could have been present there at one time was awe-inspiring. "Woah…" the orange-clad genin muttered in amazement, stepping forward a few steps and admiring the forbidden area. "This is sweet. You train up here?"

"When necessary, but I prefer the woods and Kushina's lack of predictable moves because those types of situations are much more conducive to practice," the father replied lightly. "And don't think you're allowed to come here whenever you want. There are ANBU agents here all day long." Naruto looked like he wanted to complain for a moment but eventually shrugged in concession due to his continuing excitement.

"That's fine, that's fine," he waved off the veiled threat with little to know concern. However, his face grew contemplative as a thought ran through his mind. "Speaking of which…I found a letter this morning on the table from Mom. She said that she was going on some sort of mission for the next week or so. What's that all about?"

Minato actually looked startled, and Jiraiya just looked confused, obviously not having been alerted to this particular problem. The village leader coughed for a moment before responding, "She just said that she needed a few days to go investigate something. I wouldn't call it a mission, really, it's more of a fishing expedition. And I would love to tell you what it's about, but I'm not exactly sure myself. All I know is that she was heading back to the ruins of the Hidden Whirlpool Village to try to find some family records. I'm not sure why, and she was in a right mood, so I didn't want to probe until she got back." He paused for a moment and made to put his hand in his pocket, but stopped. "She should give us a call tonight if she's able to ensure a secure connection."

"Don't worry about your ma," the Sannin added, playing along with his student, "She's basically you with a better body and more experience and control. It's just an info gathering mission."

Naruto seemed mollified by that, shrugging and nodding. His humor quickly regenerated, he asked excitedly, "So…are we going to get started or what?"

Jiraiya stepped forward and dumped the bag at the blonde's feet, spilling all kinds of colorful plastic bags of water on the dusty grass. "I'm glad that sensei was in town because he was the one that perfected the method that I used to create and refine the Rasengan," Minato explained, picking up one of the balloons as the older white-haired man did the same. "I'm not too bad at creating and dissecting chakra-based techniques, but I'm not the best at explaining how to do them."

The toad master gave his student an annoyed look. "This brat could be the lead teacher and the head librarian of this entire village if he wanted to…" Jiraiya muttered with a tone that expressed how often he had repeated this type of sentiment. "The problem isn't with his ability but his pure attention to detail and annoying modesty. If you saw the notes he wrote on how to use the Rasengan…I've seen records of the history of the world that weren't as specific as his written mental processes."

Minato rolled his eyes as he too remembered the numerous times that they had this argument over the years. "Let's just forget about that and focus on how to approach the technique." The younger blonde nodded energetically upon hearing that, and the tall pervert relented and allowed his student to proceed. Nodding and shifting into an authoritative, teaching parent mode, he held up his hand with the palm pointing towards the sky. With nothing to indicate the activation of any chakra-based technique, a swirling cloud of blue energy swiftly formed into existence over his palm and congealed into a sphere about five inches in diameter. "The first thing that I want you to understand is that this is not an easy technique to learn, and it is destructive if not used correctly," the village leader said sternly, "The late Third Hokage and I classified it as an A-rank technique for a very good reason. Granted, your Shadow Clones will be helpful in that regard, and I know that it will vastly reduce the amount of time that it will take you to learn it, but it took me three years to create the Rasengan with access to only a handful of clones, and that's just the amount of time that I devoted to research."

Jiraiya continued, "After analyzing his thorough notes…" to which his student gave a mild sigh of annoyance, "…we eventually came to the conclusion that there were three basic elements to the normal, vanilla Rasengan, minus any sort of elemental introduction or advanced shape manipulation. Without rationalizing it from scratch, this is the best way to learn this technique." He held up one finger to emphasize his initial step. "The first is the ability to master rotation your chakra in such a way that you can burst the water balloon simply by spinning the water at high velocities." To that end, he demonstrated this by picking up one of the brightly colored globes and injecting his chakra into it. The rubber began to bubble up and stretch in seemingly random patterns, rapidly increasing in size before suddenly bursting and releasing the water in a light spray. Naruto watched this, enraptured by the entire thing.

The tallest man present then pulled a plain colored rubber ball from his back pouch and held up two fingers. "Next, you need to appreciate the power that this particular technique can pack, and you have to express that by bursting this thick-walled ball with only your chakra. Air is much more difficult to channel your chakra through, and the thicker material is harder to penetrate, so while water emphasizes chakra control, air forces you to use the force of your chakra." Again, he demonstrated this by pumping a significant amount of chakra into the rubber ball, creating a similar type of bubbling to the first. Before long, the ball burst into rubber shards that fluttered to the ground, and Naruto could feel the sheer amount of chakra that he had pumped into that particular stage.

"And finally…" Jiraiya extracted a balloon filled only with air, "you need to be able to combine power and rotation such that the latter controls the former, and the balloon doesn't pop." This time, when he held up the globe, it merely wobbled in place when chakra was introduced, but it noticeably did not show any of the bubbling of the previous two attempts. The shape of the balloon continued to remain steady for a few seconds longer to prove the point until he released the concealed Rasengan and added, "There's no need to show you the destructive power, as I'm sure you've seen your dad use it numerous times."

"That's so cool!" Naruto marveled, his mind teeming with ideas about how he would approach each step. "When can we start?"

Minato and Jiraiya exchanged a grin before the Hokage looked his son in the eyes and said, "How about right now?"

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned!

**Review Responses:**

**windwarrior234: **Naruto is clueless and I love him for that. His half of the whole attempt at romance is over for the time being, but Hinata's will be an underlying current for quite a while. I actually did have the conversation between Ino and Naruto be more ambiguous so she would have that misunderstanding, but I think the route of failed or veiled interrogation will be more entertaining in the long run, because they aren't going to be a couple for a long time, if ever. Life gets in the way many, many, many times. And I'm pleased to see your reaction to the Orochimaru and Kabuto segment. My goal was to taunt with info and drop some hints and then immediately dash suspicions, and I seem to have done a good job about that. I'll leave you to your guesses, though if you're running off what you did, and assuming you're right, then you should have the answer to the identity of the other already, right?

**Atom 6111: **I understand your issues, but I think I have an answer that will satisfy you. Canon one-tailed Naruto used Kurama's chakra, but the relationship was still antagonistic, so while he gained a massive amount of power, he wasn't in full control and couldn't harness it regularly. In this story however, jinchūriki and bijū are in complete synchronization. Naruto now has access to Kurama's chakra but the power is decreased accordingly to mostly just a speed and power boost. Still very potent but not quite the level of everyone else. My view of Naruto's final perfect sync with Kurama is that he really didn't get all that much more powerful but did allow Kurama to battle with him. Perfect sync eliminates the detriment to his body too, the evil and lack of agreement was the reason behind the degradation of his body. Finally, Naruto asked Sakura out before the story began, so by Chapter 1, he's basically over her.

**nolanv3: **Thanks, man! I really appreciate it! The time skip is the real question here, isn't it? What will happen…if anything at all? I know the Haku change is common but I thought what I did was a nice twist. No extra siblings for Naruto for reasons that will be explained later on. Let's just say that it's more of an issue of can rather than want. Thanks for the support.


	22. (Exam Interlude 3) Chapter 21

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Running off a bout of confusion induced by Naruto's questionable move of seeing help from Ino, Hinata started to run herself into the ground trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Luckily, her teammates were there to help and drag her out of her state, with Kiba telling her bluntly that she needed to man up and just say what she thought. Meanwhile, Naruto headed off to his father's office to meet up with the village leader as well as his godfather Jiraiya, who had returned to town. After being told of all of his faults as a ninja, Naruto was pleased to learn that he would have an opportunity to learn his father's Rasengan (Spiralling Sphere) as a way to work on his lacking abilities in chakra control and fine movement control in the midst of battle. The group moved to a private training ground on top of the cliff reserved for use by the Hokage and guests, and Jiraiya took over explanation of the steps that he created to allow some ease in learning the A-ranked technique. Naruto was eager to get started, but he did ask Minato about where Kushina had disappeared off, and he was surprised to learn that his father was just as lost as he was.

**AN:** Jumping forward a little bit, with a flashback to fill in a gap or two in time that I didn't feel warranted excessive timeskips.

**(Exam Interlude) Chapter 21 – The Secrets of the Namikaze-Uzumaki Clan Investigated! Finals Training Continues!**

**About a week later**

Situated off the eastern coastline of the Fire Country sits the remains of the once fabled and feared Hidden Whirlpool Village. A longtime ally of the Hidden Leaf Village and feared opponent to many a foe, the ancient civilization was primarily home to the Uzumaki clan, of which only a handful of members still exist to this day. Even then, those few individuals are scattered across the globe, having intermarried and molded into other villages and relationships such that you wouldn't know their heritage unless you guessed it or they felt a need to tell you about it. The family, known for the distinctive red hair shared amongst them, was a well established force in the area of sealing techniques, and that made them just as much of a target as a potential ally.

The Second Shinobi World War brought that to a head, as forces from the Lightning and Water Countries both attempted to make landfall in the Fire Country by avoiding a land approach and taking their troops to the eastern coast. As direct family members thanks to the union between Senju Hashirama and Uzumaki Mito, the Senju-led Hidden Leaf Village attempted to come to the aid of their allies, but the Hidden Rock-laden western front prevented them from being able to provide enough support. Many of the Senju clan died in those fights, leaving a similarly diminutive number of ninja from that family alive as well.

When Hidden Leaf forces finally arrived in Whirlpool, nearly three weeks after they had first received notice of an issue, all they found was the remains of a grand battle. Bodies of Cloud and Mist ninja lay scattered on the coast and in the waters of the island nation, and the sea walls that had once protected the Whirlpool Village were nothing but cracked pieces of rock, strewn every which way. It was clear that some sort of magnificent and destructive battle had taken place there, but given the lack of bodies of the defenders, it wasn't immediately obvious what had occurred or who had killed them. Upon further investigation into the actual village, after searching through a number of crumbling homes and buildings and sifting through the rubble, the allied forces finally located the bodies of nearly all the battle-able ninja in the center of the village. They looked for all the world like they were merely resting or meditating, seated in a large circle in the central building of the small community in a pose of focusing. There were no obvious signs of trauma on any of them, and each had a peaceful look resting on their faces.

It wasn't until a young, up and coming sealing expert by the name of Jiraiya, looking to make a name for himself after distancing himself from one of Hidden Leaf's four noble clans, came to investigate the wreckage that they were able to get an idea of what had transpired there. While he was not able to completely decipher the nearly invisible scribbles on the ground, he was able to identify some sort of explosive matrix built into both the bodies of the deceased Uzumaki clan fighters and the walls, and further inspection of the fragments revealed rudimentary stone figures, as if the walls had come to life to defend the village. Even amongst those who had married into the Uzumaki clan, the techniques of the admittedly secretive family were largely unknown and not understood well, and attempts to locate the archival vaults were not that successful.

Also of interest was the lack of any trace of women and children, and judging by the complete obliteration of the enemy forces, they weren't absent due to being kidnapped. After a week of sifting through rubble, a team of chūnin located an escape route buried under the school, with a number of notes in the passageway revealing that the noncombatants had been safely evacuated before any of the enemies had actually made landfall. By that time, the escapees were long gone, and many people figured that they had either already fled to the Hidden Leaf Village, as they had known some had, or to the eastern reaches of the continent where they could disappear into the crowd and not fear being found by undesirables. Jiraiya later supported the latter when he discovered a young Uzumaki youth in the Rain Country during the latter stages of the same war.

Fast forward to the present, where with time and weathering and a lack of residents or care, the once grand structures of the ancient outpost were crumbling, and the only sign of any disturbance in the recent past were the graves of the identifiable dead. Curiously enough, even so many years after the fact, they continued to be well cared for, and the reason behind that currently led two other figures through the remains of the main building in search of the entrance to the main archives.

"Careful…" Uzumaki Kushina said softly, even as she heeded her own advice and crept down the decaying staircase into the basement. No longer in her normal casual dress, now she was dressed in the basic Hidden Leaf jōnin gear, except in a sleeveless shirt and her hair up in a ponytail with two scrolls hanging off of her belt. "This place is extremely unstable, and I have no idea how many of the safety seals and traps are still engaged. Be extremely vigilant of your surroundings…" The two ANBU agents accompanying her, one with a bear mask and the other with a rabbit one, likely didn't need the warnings, but nevertheless they did as she asked and mirrored her footsteps and handholds.

As the procession of three slowly made their way along the spiraling staircase into the lower levels of the archives, the light grew dimmer as well. Even with the flashlights that Kushina had thought to bring along, it was hard to pierce the gloom, and one had to wonder if that wasn't part of the defensive mechanisms built into the walls. Luckily, despite the treacherous conditions, the portable light sources were enough to get the three-man team to the basement.

A giant slab blocked the path forward, seemingly resulting in a dead end, but everyone present knew that wasn't accurate. "Let's see here…" Kushina murmured, walking up to the wall and examining it, "I think I still remember how to get in here…" As the two ANBU agents waited patiently nearby, the redheaded mother began to slowly slide her hands along the wall, probing the concrete with her chakra every couple of seconds until it latched on to something incorporated into the stone. Stopping, she poured more of her unique energy into that spot, and instantly the obstruction cracked open, blinding the trio with an unexpected light from within and forcing them to shield their eyes as the hidden door creaked open.

When their eyes had adjusted to the sudden change in luminescence, Kushina stepped forward and nodded grimly. "Well boys…" she said in a hushed tone, "Welcome to the Hidden Whirlpool Village's secret archives…or what's left of it…" Both ANBU agents gazed around at the magnificent hall as she began to walk towards the very back. Shelves upon shelves lined and bisected the space, and once upon a time, they would have been filled with the secret techniques and historical lores of the once mighty enclave. Now, only scraps and fragments remained of the innumerous scrolls that were once housed in that secret room.

The elite warrior sporting the bear mask exchanged a faint look of confusion with his associate before addressing "Forgive me if this sounds insensitive, Lady Kushina, but it doesn't appear that there is anything left here. Is this what you were expecting to find here?"

"I hope that we didn't cause an issue by coming here with you," the other one, the elder and more outspoken of the two, added hesitantly.

"Not at all," the Hokage's wife replied flippantly, stopping her march at the seemingly blank opposite wall. "I chose you two specifically because you wouldn't accidentally set anything off unless you stepped on a general trap. You both have traces of my clan's blood in your veins, and we were careful enough coming down here." She moved a couple of yards to her right and began to run her palms over the wall in a similar manner to the way that she found the activation switch to the secret entrance. "No, what we're here for isn't anything that would be easily removed by scavengers or thieves that came back after deserting the village. I just have to…find it…" Her hand brushed over a certain area, and a large seal matrix erupted into view on the wall. "There it is…" she grinned happily, pumping more of her chakra into the revealed inscriptions. The massive seal glowed red, powered by Kushina's unique mixture of Uzumaki and tailed beast chakra, for a few moments before rapidly shrinking. As soon as it was no longer visible, another door opened in the wall, and the three stepped into the noticeably smaller chamber.

In stark opposition to the main hall, this side room was filled with all manners of scrolls, tools, weapons, and many other items. The ANBU agents hesitated once they crossed the initial threshold, and the rabbit masked one asked, "Is it okay for us to be in here? This room seems rather special compared to the last one."

"Normally, no, you would have tripped some sort of nasty trap if you had managed to find or force your way in here on your own…" Kushina explained as she sifted through the dusty items, "…but as an heir to this particular family vault, I can give permission to visitors as long as they possess some measure of familial relation to me, which both of you do. The only people that can get in here normally would be me or…my older sister or young brother…if they're still alive…and of course Naruto, since he's my son…" The special ops ninja briefly exchanged a glance and said no more, opting to watch the redhead look around the room.

Twenty minutes later, after pushing away a pile of old swords from a corner, she located a chest and gave a grunt of victory. "There you are…" she murmured, opening the large wooden container and extracting the lone scroll contained inside of it. Curiously enough, she didn't give it a second look before stowing it in a hip pouch. "I think we're through here, gentlemen," she said simply, and the two agents weren't about to question her about the item that was obviously something special and cherished, so they departed from the room. Once Kushina was out, the seal sprung back to life, and the wall reappeared completely. The same thing occurred once they exited the main hall, and the trio quickly made their way back to the surface, once more taking care with the rickety old staircase.

"Is that all, Lady Kushina?" the bear-masked agent asked. "Shall I alert Lord Hokage that we will be returning soon?"

"No need, Bear, I can do that myself," she replied, looking much happier now that she wasn't in the crypt. "He's probably wondering why this took longer than expected, so I can explain to him what's going on." She extracted her cell phone and began typing away, ensuring that all of the encryption software and seals were in place before dialing up her husband's number.

After a few rings, she heard his voice for the first time in over a week. "_Hello? Kushina? Is that you?_"

"Thankfully, yes it is. I'm so sorry this took longer than expected, but this place has deteriorated a lot since the last time I was here…"

As she continued to chat with Minato, the ANBU agents remained on guard around her, keeping their eyes trained on anything out of the ordinary in the surrounding area. However, even their specially trained vision wasn't able to catch sight of a figure standing on the cliff overlooking the remains of the village. Due to the large tunic this person was wearing, features were next to impossible to discern, though as a gust of wind ruffled the hood, a shock of wild red hair was visible, as well as violet eyes and distinctly feminine features. Those same eyes narrowed as they swept over the team of three before setting on the vibrant redhead. "Coming back here like you still belong to the Uzumaki…" the figure spat softly in contempt, "You'll know the feeling of true pain and despair before too long…you can count on that…"

Another gust of wind blew by, and the figure disappeared into the breeze, as if she had never been there.

…xXx…

Minato snapped shut his cell phone and grinned happily. "You'll be pleased to know that your mom is done with her mission and heading home soon," he said to Naruto, who was lounging on a bench nearby.

The younger blonde perked right up when he heard that. "Thank goodness, I was beginning to get tired of fried fish and rice for dinner…" he muttered.

The Hokage looked somewhat sheepish. "You could give me a little break, you know. That's the only thing I know how to make well, and you weren't exactly jumping all over yourself to help."

"Yeah, yeah, okay…" his son snapped back, "Just because you don't trust me to make a meal for you."

"Well, the one time that you tried to cook something, the stove blew up…"

"That wasn't my fault!" Naruto insisted, "The stupid thing was broken, you heard the repairman!"

"So where did the explosive tag remains come from?" That shut him up pretty fast, and Minato couldn't help but laugh at his son's distress before looking back out over the village. The two were sitting on top of the Hokage Monument, in the small park area between the cliff and the special training ground, and they were taking a break from Naruto's Rasengan training. Despite around a week or so of full training days, he had been unable to put much of a dent into the first step of the training, even with the aid of a few dozen Shadow Clones, but he had some mild success with the second step, so he had shifted his focus to that for the time being.

Having given up on the cooking retorts, Naruto shifted his train of thought to the training he was currently struggling with. "I don't know why I'm having so much trouble with this, Dad," he said dejectedly, "I thought Shadow Clones were supposed to accelerate the process."

"It's not a perfect system, and there are a lot of considerations that need to be made here," his father replied calmly, "Remember, we only undid the seal on Kurama at the start of puberty; your body is almost done integrating his chakra into yours, but until that completion is achieved, you'll experience some fluctuation in your chakra control." He clapped the younger man on the shoulder in reassurance. "It's nothing to worry about. You're doing just fine. Think about it this way – if you can perfect the Rasengan before that point in time, just imagine how potent you'll be with it once your chakra stabilizes."

Naruto's face grew contemplative as he nodded in agreement. "I never thought about it like that…" he murmured, a grin quickly erupting on his face. "That's pretty awesome, huh…" Having that brand new outlook on his training, he jumped to his feet and began to stretch out. "How about we continue in a few…"

Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by some increasingly louder, impassioned grunts coming from over the edge of the cliff. The jinchūriki, with a confused expression on his face, slowly made his way over to the edge, and he quickly noticed something that wasn't present earlier in the week. "Hey, Dad, were these chains here before?" he asked as he crept as close to the edge as he could to try to see what they attached to.

"Oh, that's right," Minato said, remembering something that had been relayed to him earlier in the week. "I forgot that Guy had requested some training time on the cliff face. The days are getting away from me."

Naurto turned briefly, looking confused, and asked, "What the heck are you talking about?" before leaning over further...and obtaining his answer within only a few seconds of craning his neck. Not only that, but he also received possibly one of the most disturbing sights that he had ever seen.

On the other end of the heavy metal chains was Lee, slowly climbing his way up the Hokage Monument using any handholds available and chakra when necessary. He wasn't wearing any sort of auxiliary weights except for the usual ones hidden underneath his leg warmers, but he was burdened down by two more chains, each wrapped around one of his arms, and each led to two more of his teammates. One was attached to a harness on Might Guy, and the other was connected to Hyūga Neji's harness.

As Naruto was trying to wrap his mind around this entire scene of strangeness, the chakra of the white-eyed warrior lit to life, surrounding him in the protective sphere of the Hakkeshō Kaiten (Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven). A few moments later, multiple inbound weapons clattered off the chakra globe, ricocheting around in every direction, and quickly after that, Neji released his technique, looking extremely tired and spent.

"That's the spirit, my adorable students!" Guy's voice boomed out, no doubt being audible to the entire village. "Now this is what training is all about!" He swung past his young Hyūga charge and gave him a thumbs-up as he passed. "I haven't seen you this youthful in a long time, Neji!" he exclaimed happily, seemingly having not a care in the world that he was hanging perilously from a cliff, with only his student's grip keeping him suspended there. The only response he received on the way back was a bunch of strong pants of exhaustion and a glare to the back as he proceeded with his pendulum motion.

"You were right, Guy-sensei!" Speaking of the anchor, Lee wasn't about to let an opportunity pass to comment on this new type of training. "I feel invigorated having the chance to train with my teammates in a stressful and challenging environment. My flames of youth are overflowing!" Even with the strain of two, 200-pound men and the heavy metal supporting them, his eyes flamed to life, and his movements flowed in a way that betrayed the weight that held them down. "Let's GOOOOOOOOOOOO!" he bellowed as he began to scramble up the rocks like his pants were on fire.

Of course, his sudden spurt of youthfulness came at a rather inopportune time and without any notice, and both Neji and Guy were caught off guard and flung around helter skelter as they attempted to stabilize themselves, futilely, in midair. While Guy continued to bellow all manners of encouragement to his prize pupil, Hinata's cousin could only hang on for dear life and try to hold his lunch while avoiding being plastered against the rock faces.

Completely forgotten in the chaos was Tenten, who had been standing on top of one of the buildings near the cliff. At her feet were multiple buckets full of dummy projectile weapons, and on her face was a look of exasperation that bore the wear of a year's worth of experience with her team. "Good grief…" she muttered, shaking her head in annoyance. "You're on your own, Neji. I'm going to get lunch." Leaving the piles of practice weapons behind, she turned around walked off towards the rooftop access stairs, her hands clasped behind her head as she began to muse over her options.

Naruto watched the odd procession of Lee and his teacher and teammate as they zigzagged their way back and forth across the monument, but he wasn't focused on the oddity of the situation but rather something completely different, and this particular item was causing something in his head to click. "Hey, Guy-sensei, Lee!" he shouted down the steep incline, surprising his father as well as stopping Tenten in her tracks as she turned to look for the new voice. Lee didn't catch on the first time that he was shouted at, so Naruto was forced to bellow once more down at the young man before he caught on and ceased his frenzied scramble.

"Hello, Naruto!" the spandex-clad genin shouted up the wall, leaving Guy and Neji to swing in the breeze. "What are you doing up there?"

"No doubt some most youthful training with our esteemed leader, eh?" his teacher added, stroking his chin as he considered the possible outcomes of said practice.

"Uh…yeah, something like that. I've been training with my dad for most of the morning, but we're taking a break now!" was the answer he received. "Hey, listen, do you mind if I borrow Neji for awhile? I need to ask him some questions!"

The energetic jōnin looked slightly puzzled by the request but shrugged in compliance. "That shouldn't be much of an issue." Just then, the individual in question swung past him, his face a cesspool of suppressed anger and exhaustion, but of course, Guy was oblivious to that. "What do you say, Neji? Is that alri…"

"Yes!" he replied stiffly, maybe a little bit too forcefully before softening his tone. "I would be happy to help Naruto out." Before Guy could even reply to that, he had freed himself of the harness and begun to run up the face of the Second Hokage. "I will meet you for practice tomorrow morning as usual. I will see you there." he threw behind him before disappearing over the ledge.

The bowlcut jōnin looked nonplussed at the odd exchange but recovered quickly and gave his attached student a grin and a thumbs-up. "Looks like it's just the two of us, Lee! Let's get going!" He turned and looked down to the building Tenten was on, shouting, "We're ready when you are, my most youthful weapons tosser!"

"Crap…" she hissed, having tried to sneak off once more and failing to do so. Sighing in resignation, she turned back and made to stand in the midst of her projectile buckets, cranking up the music on her media player to make the task somewhat less annoying. "At least Neji can't protect them any more so I can do some damage…oh, now there's a thought…" The sadistic part of her mind began to take over as her hand began to inch towards her real weapons pouch.

Meanwhile, Neji was walking over towards the father and son combo. "If I never have to do that again, it'll be too soon," he grumbled, tossing the harness over the edge of the cliff and silently praying that it would hit one of the two stooges.

"What in the world was that?" Naruto asked blankly, still on shock over what he had born witness to.

"That was Guy-sensei's idea of strength and endurance training for Lee, and chakra stamina training me," he ground out bitterly. "And since Tenten got knocked out, he figured that she could get some target practice in by throwing rubber weapons at us."

Minato was rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, I'm glad I know why he requested to use the monument as a training area," he said, laughing nervously, "Hopefully this is a one time only deal."

"I know it is for me…" Neji said darkly before shaking his head clear of that particular 'experiment.' "So…Naruto, not that I'm not grateful, but what did you need to ask me?" His eyebrow arched slightly as he remembered something, and the faintest hint of a smirk graced his features. "Does this have anything to do with you getting dating advice from Ino?"

Immediately, he wished he had a camera to take a picture of what he was seeing. As soon as he said that, Naruto's jaw dropped wide open, and his eyes grew much wider than usual. Soon after, he began to gape like a fish. "Wh-wh-wh-what are you talking about?" he stammered, staggering over to his friend, "How did you find out about that?"

Neji's eyebrow remained raised at that dubious lack of thought. "Well, your first problem was going to Ino of all people for advice, but the bigger issue here is that you weren't as stealthy as you thought you were." The blonde's gut bottomed out as he instantly figured out what had happened just as it was told to him. "Hinata was at the café across the street. She saw it all." 

Uzumaki immediately began slapping himself in the head in anger. "Dammit…dammit…DAMMIT," he spat, shaking his head in disgust and to try to shut up the peals of laughter running through his mind courtesy of Kurama. "Oh man, this isn't good at all! How much does she know? Does she know that I was trying to figure out how I should ask her out? How much do you know?!" he asked desperately, grabbing the front of his friend's robes and getting too close for the stoic Hyūga's comfort.

The faintest hint of a smirk twitched at the edges of Neji's mouth as he thought, 'Well, well, well…' before he said aloud, "I don't know about her necessarily, but I certainly wasn't aware of that until you said that. Thanks for that little tidbit of information."

"NO! Crap, no, no, NO!" Naruto screamed, causing his forgotten father to cover his ears momentarily as he broke away from the taller teen and grasped at his head in anxiety.

"I honestly don't see what the big deal is," Neji said, his face indicating much more interest than his tone was expressing. "If you like my cousin, ask her out. What's the problem?"

Upon hearing the last part of that statement, the face of the Hokage's son grew fearful, and his voice dropped to a mere whisper as he stomped back over to his friend's personal bubble. "I'm…I'm…I'm not afraid of asking her out! I'm…uh…afraid of…uh…what her dad might do to me if I do something wrong…" he hissed, trying (and failing) to conceal what he was saying from his own dad as he made up a bad excuse.

Neji couldn't deny him that completely, and he saw through the thin deception, but he went along with it because he felt sorry for the blonde. "You have a valid point, but I still think you should just man up and go for it," he retorted in a very uncharacteristic tone, unintentionally speaking his thoughts on the real subject at hand. "I felt a lot better when I did that, and it worked out extremely well for me."

Naruto likewise couldn't deny that either, as the beginning of the young man's relationship with Tenten almost a year prior had incited a noticeable shift in his personality. "I guess…" he grumbled, "…but when I went to find her the day after that, she had left on some mission, and she won't be back for another week."

"That's true, but from the looks of things, it appears you have other worries at the moment." Neji eyed the blonde's dusty clothing and the bag of balloons and rubber balls at Minato's feet with a questioning eye.

Said father hoisted the sack up and clapped his son on the shoulder. "I've been teaching Naruto how to perform the Rasengan." That certainly got the branch family member's attention, as he and most everyone in the village was aware of the Fourth Hokage's signature technique.

Scratching the back of his head in embarrassment, the whiskered youth said sheepishly, "It's not going so well so far, which is why I wanted to ask for your help. Something clicked in my head when I saw you working with Lee and Guy-sensei."

"And what might that be?"

"How do you perform your Kaiten?" he asked tentatively, immediately adding the following after noting an objection about to be said, "Not anything secretive, I just want to know how you mold your chakra so it spirals the way it does." As expected, Neji didn't respond quickly, and it was obvious that he was rolling around in his head whether or not it would be acceptable to reveal even a minor and solitary piece of his family's secret techniques. Naruto waited anxiously, while Minato was more calm, though he too was curious about how much he could get out of the normally stoic Hyūga.

Finally, after a minute or so of silent deliberation, the long-haired genin said slowly, "That shouldn't be a problem, as long as what you want to know is rather basic in nature."

"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course!" the blonde replied enthusiastically, "I'm just having trouble forming my chakra into the shape of a ball while stabilizing it over my hand."

Neji nodded as he activated his Byakugan. "Show me."

Minato opened the sack and tossed one of the water balloons over to his son. The younger Uzumaki palmed it and immediately began yet another attempt to create his father's original move. Both of the observers could feel the chakra being emanated from both his skin and the balloon, and Neji was able to see exactly what was happening as he leaned in to get a closer look.

"Alright, you can stop for the moment," he said after about a minute of observation, and his temporary 'student' complied. "You actually are a lot closer than you think you are; the only thing preventing you from achieving a compact, spherical mass of chakra is some amount of concert between the strands being produced from each of your tenketsu (chakra nodes)."

As science wasn't exactly his forte, that explanation went right over Naruto's head. "What the heck did you just say?" he asked bluntly, ignoring his father's slightly amused look.

Neji wasn't that surprised, but he still shook his head in amazement. "Some things never change, do they? Let's see…how can I explain this simply?" He pondered an appropriate method for a few moments before thinking of something that would be impossible for the somewhat moronic genin to not understand. "You know how ramen noodles clump together in the bowl, and it's hard to isolate just one without dragging a few more along with it?" he asked, happily noting that he received an almost instant nod of understanding. "Good, well that's how you need to visualize this. Just in the course of your training, it appears you have the general shape down, but you don't have any cohesion between each individual chakra strand, and that's what you're lacking."

"Interesting analysis, Neji," Minato said, deciding to jump in to the academic discussion before Naruto could say anything. "I thought it might have been a result of Kurama's chakra fluctuating and forcing either a stiffening or wilting of the individual chakra threats that were produced from his tenketsu, but I actually like your explanation more."

"Thank you, Lord Hokage. I truly appreciate that." And the humble look on his face certainly expressed that, but he quickly turned his attention to his friend. "How does that sound?"

The blonde shrugged casually, though his eyes expressed a new energy and understanding of his father's technique. "I think so. Thanks a lot!"

"Not a problem," he replied, deflecting the thanks as per usual. "Now…I should probably go save Tenten from Guy-sensei and Lee." He immediately smirked as he considered the alternative, and the faint yelps of pain and protest off in the distance only served to confirm his suspicions. "Or rather, I may need to save them from her. I will see you later Naruto, Lord Hokage." The polite young man bowed briefly before trotting away. However, he paused for a moment and turned back around, shouting, "Naruto, if you wish to do something about the other problem we discussed, I think it would be wise for you to know that Hinata and her squad, as well Keisei-sensei's team are departing for a joint mission soon, possibly even tomorrow." Without waiting for a response, he turned and disappeared back over the monument.

Minato turned to say something to his son now that they were alone again, but he was actually too late, as Naruto had already resumed trying to complete the first step of his Rasengan training, though his cheeks had reddened, and it was obvious he didn't want to talk about that last segment of the conversation. Even then, he could tell how much better things were going, and he decided to remain silent and observe the young man's renewed attempts.

It most certainly seemed like Neji's assistance, no matter how small or insignificant it may have appeared to be, was paying dividends almost immediately. The balloon, which previously just wobbled slightly in the hand of the teenager without any sort of worthwhile bulging, now had offshoots of chakra creating surprisingly large lumps. "That's rather remarkable…" he murmured, making sure not to upset his son's concentration, "I always knew he took more after Kushina than me." His eyes shut slightly as he grinned happily. "But he's my boy too, and he might just get this done before the finals begin at this rate."

"Dammit!" Naruto's voice snapped him out of his blissful ignorance, and he noticed that the balloon had sprung another leak, though this time nearly half of the rubber container had been shredded by his attempt instead of a tiny, neat hole as had been observed previously. "I almost had it!" he whined slightly, chucking the wasted practice into a nearby trash bin as he looked for another balloon to start on.

Minato reached down and picked up the sack, which had dwindled in size significantly as the day had dragged on. He looked up at the sky, and by his estimation it was a little after noon. A quick check of his cell phone confirmed that, as well as reminded him of the tasks that he needed to tend to personally. "Let's chalk up today as a success, eh?" he asked, catching the younger blonde's attention, "How about we go grab some ramen and then relax the rest of the afternoon? You can go hunt up some of your friends to hang out or do something, I can finish my work, and then we can figure out dinner. Sound good?"

"Works for me!" Naruto agreed swiftly, wiping his forehead clear of sweat. The two began to walk over towards the cliff face, with son bouncing ideas off father, "I think I heard Shikamaru and Chōji say they were taking the afternoon off, and I might be able to hunt down Sasuke and Sakura if they aren't too busy with their genjutsu training…maybe Lee too if he's done with whatever the heck he's doing down here…" His voice trailed off as the duo took off down the cliff, with the screams, grunts, and exclamations of the aforementioned green clad genin serving as appropriate background noise.

**Later that afternoon, Training Ground 4**

In the outermost training areas of the Hidden Leaf Village, there are a number of simulated climates and regions for hometown warriors to prepare with, or in this case, for visitors to use for practice. This particular area was a near perfect simulation of the desert outside of the Hidden Sand Village, complete with sparse cacti, tumbleweeds, and an abundance of sand. That same silicate was currently being thrashed around the area, as waves of tan and gold crashed into each other repeatedly, with spurts of wind, purple clouds of dilute poison, and flailing mechanical limbs breaking the monotony.

Gaara stood still, with not a single wasted movement or even twitch, as he guided the massive sand paws, styled after his fighting associate Shukaku, with hand motions that were both complicated and smooth at the same time. The amount of his sand far outweighed the amount that his father, who stood opposite of him in a similar stance about one hundred yards away, wielded, but the utility of his denser gold dust easily compensated for the significantly lower mass. Using what little he could dredge up and extract from the normal silicate as well as a storage pouch that he always carried during battles, Rasa still only had about a third (or less) of the mass that his son had access to, but he made up for it by using it well.

Kankurō and Temari were also there, with brother helping brother and sister helping father. The puppeteer was short a puppet, as he was still in the middle of repairing Sanshōuo, but he still had access to both Karasu and Kuroari. His role was mostly a defensive one, and even then only really defending his younger brother from the howling wind blades flying nonstop from the fan of their older sister. He knew from past experience that no matter how skilled he was, there was no way to avoid gunking up the joints of his puppets in a fight with the Kazekage, so he stuck to blocking something he knew he could somewhat combat.

Feeling no need whatsoever to hold back, Temari's main use in this little family spar was threefold. Obviously, she was trying to get past her masked brother's puppets, which she had a lot of experience in doing over the past few years. She also had the somewhat more daunting task of piercing the absolute defense of her younger brother, and she had to aid her father by using her wind to push some of the gold dust into close proximity to Gaara.

Honestly, the real fight was between Kazekage and jinchūriki, though it was more of a stalemate than a fight. The sheer volume of regular sand was actually doing some good for Gaara in fending off the deadening power of the denser powder. Both of them seemed to come to this same conclusion at about the same time and abruptly allowed their dusty waves to collapse back to the ground, startling the two other Sand ninja there for a moment before they realized what was about to occur. Both Temari and Kankurō slowly backed away, opting to watch instead of participate.

Father and son stared each other down, with nothing but the ambient wind to cause a hint of swirling sound in each of their ears. It wasn't immediately obvious that either was breathing, and likewise their eyes were unflinching as they stared each other down. Even the sand and gold, melded together in an otherwise unassuming mixture, seemed to want to respect the wishes of the tense moment and remain still, wrapped in a relationship that appeared impossible for their respective controllers.

After a few minutes of this unnatural calm, a crow flew by and cawed loudly, and both combatants immediately sprung into action. Gaara's sand immediately separated from his father's weapon of choice and congealed around his hands into two large paws shaped in a similar manner to that of Shukaku, with a large sandy spear clasped in one of them whose head resembled yet another pointy hand. Rasa's gold hardened into a much more compact form as it wrapped around his hands and fingers into the shape of brass knuckles emblazoned with the insignia of the village he led.

Hidden Sand's leader was originally planning to let his son come to him, but the sudden and unexpected pooling of silicate at his feet forced him to reconsider that particular plan. He leaped lightly into the air, avoiding the oncoming Sabaku Kyū (Sand Binding Coffin) as he lifted his head to look at his son…who had disappeared from his initial position and now was only inches away. To an outsider, his face was just as stoic as ever, but Rasa could see the tension marks straining at his features, and internally the elder redhead sighed before pulling his knuckles up to battle.

With speed that wouldn't have been possible before Jiraiya's previous intervention, Gaara began to assault his father with precision punches and stabs from the spear, which the village leader parried with slight movements and careful deflections.

Down below, Kankurō and Temari had ceased their portion of the fighting in favor of watching the hand-to-hand combat occurring with the other two members of their family. "Hey…sis, I've been wondering about something," the makeup-wearing genin said slowly, ripping his gaze from the fight for a moment.

"Yeah…I think we both have, as has Father…" the blonde girl sighed, "I'm beginning to wonder if we can ever get those two to be amicable towards each other…" She walked over and sat down on a large rock nearby, picking up one of the water bottles that they had brought along with them. She began to sip with a contemplative look on her face, somewhat ignoring her brother when he came over and sat down next to her to receive some refreshment as well. "I wonder…" she murmured, pulling the bottle away from her lips.

"What?" Kankurō asked in confusion, startled by the random utterance.

"I might have an idea. After dinner, let's grab Gaara and go looking for someone." The puppeteer raised an eyebrow, still not exactly sure what was going on, but he nodded in agreement and continued to suck down some water. Temari's water bottle was soon forgotten as she sank into deep thought. 'I'm tired of having a split family. Even if they don't get along, anything to get them where they are at least cordial with each other or in some sort of speaking relationship would be better than what they have now. Hopefully we can find _him_ later and put Gaara on the right track, because I want the person my little brother has become to be a permanent fixture in our lives, and I'm tired of having to walk on eggshells whenever we're all in the same room…' Content with her decision, she leaned back and took a swig of the liquid, watching the admittedly intense duel that was occurring above her.

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned!

**Review Responses:**

**Sadness abounds…****ここにはレビューがない…悲しい…**


	23. (Flashback 2) Escape from Whirlpool

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**AN:** Flashback time! This won't be too long, but there will be a number of important references in here that you will need to keep in mind for later chapters. Enjoy! We'll be back to the normal

**(Flashback 2) Escape from the Hidden Waterfall Village**

_Many years earlier, in the middle of the Second Shinobi World War_

"…we need to get going!"

"…there's no time to dawdle around! Men and able-bodied teenagers, report to the main building AT ONCE…!"

"…women, children, and noncombatants, report to the storage archives upon evacuation from your homes! Please ensure that anything family-related items are in your possession, and leave no one behind, even pets…!"

"…the head jōnin is requesting the presence of her family at her office as soon as they can join her there…!"

"…we have injured incoming! Are the healers ready to take them, or do we need to perform field surgery? We have some gruesome wounds here that need tending to…!"

"…for the glory of the Uzumaki clan and Whirlpool, do not ever surrender…!"

Chaos had erupted in the Hidden Whirlpool Village. In an era where war and savagery far outweighed times of peace and tranquility, the isolated island nation had managed to remain mostly neutral, separated from the fighting thanks to natural barricades and wise leadership. The Leaf and Sand were embroiled in a bitter power struggle with the Cloud and Mist, and their fighting had already leached into smaller countries and villages, such as the battle-torn Rain and Grass Villages. Still, the Uzumaki clan was a world renowned family of sealing and specialized combat experts, as well as possibly the strongest ally that the Hidden Leaf Village had outside of the Fire Country, and that was all that was needed to paint a large target on them.

Now, the normally quiet abode at sea was fractured by the frantic cries of terrified citizens, barks from battle-hardened veterans, and a general commotion punctuated by a continuously blaring siren as the village prepared to face down a combined force of Cloud (for their offensive firepower) and Mist (to traverse the hazy waters) ninja. The invaders had not yet made landfall, but their stealth ships were quite visible in the violent rapids and whirlpools surrounding the island, so the defenders were making preparations accordingly. There was no way to tell how long it would take them to figure out a way to bypass the defenses, but it was more of a matter of when than if.

The leader of the village was a grizzled old woman by the name of Uzumaki Katsuko. A direct descendant of Ashina, the real progenitor of the clan, she sported similar looks to the legendary ally of Senju Hashirama. With straight, long hair whitened with age from its traditional crimson, crinkled smoky gray eyes, and a slightly wrinkled face, her appearances would have one believe that she should be well into her retirement years, but make no mistake – she was still one of, if not the most powerful ninja in the entire village. Currently, she stood in her office, looking out upon the people and buildings that she had pledged so many years prior to protect and preserve with every fiber of her being.

For the first time in a long while, or possibly even the first time in her adult life, she sighed in resignation. She wasn't used to being a position of powerlessness, and yet she truly felt that way for only the second time in her life, the first being when he had found out that her husband had perished much too young while on a mission. She had refused to remarry, even when some of the village officials had offered to grant her a waiver excluding her from the normal marriage restrictions of the village, and her life became a complete and thorough devotion to the ninja and citizens of her people as one giant family, with only a minor amount of favoritism to her only daughter.

Yes, she did have one heir, who in turn had three children of her own. Uzumaki Anna was raised in both a loving but trying household, where her mother put her skills to the test on a daily basis in an attempt to prevent what had happened with her father many years prior. They had a built up a somewhat uneasy relationship as a result, based more on respect than love, but it wasn't to the point of being acrimonious…mostly. Rather, they kept to themselves and interacted neutrally when appropriate and necessary. It wasn't enough to prevent the three youngsters from sensing the tension, but they all had enough respect (and more than a little fear) of their grandmother to not ask about it.

That very same daughter now entered her office, the very face of calm and collected in the face of the somewhat controlled chaos that had overtaken the village in the previous hours. Following behind her were her children, and Katsuko couldn't help but feel a pang of regret and sadness as she turned around and realized that all three were present, instead of the two that still remained members of the small ninja conglomerate. The thrice parent had the smoky eyes of her own mother as well as her crimson hair up in a ponytail. She wore a slightly slimmer version of the outfit her mother sported, except instead of longer pants she opted for a more useful skirt.

The oldest child of the three stood with a hand on her hip, as she was prone to doing, her vibrant purple eyes gazing around her grandmother's somewhat bare and unremarkable office with a hint of incredulousness. At 15 years old, Uzumaki Kanae was already a fast riser within the ranks of the Whirlpool chūnin, having breezed through an abbreviated and heavily modified version of the exams that was held in a secluded spot for three of the villages. Her long red hair, one of the lighter shades in her clan, was tied up in a large bun that was secured to the side of her head with two rather simple wooden needles. She wore a rather baggy, blue-grey long-sleeved blouse that extended past her hands and waist more than usual, concealing a number of weapons, both unique to her and common to the world. She also wore matching capris, and her Whirlpool headband lay around her neck. In appearance, she was a near match to her mother, with the exception of eye color and hairstyle.

Anna's youngest was the next to enter. Kazuya was only 10 years old and still in school, and he looked understandably the most shaken of the four people entering the room. His darker maroon hair fell down over his face and ears, shielding his eyes from most everyone in the room. Even then, with the large bandana covering the upper portion of his face, it was a shock that he could navigate the stairs and hallways en route to his grandmother's workspace. He also wore a baggy shirt and medium length pants similar to his sisters', though his did not extend as far down the arms. He was extremely jumpy and clung to his mother's side as much as he possibly could, prone to being startled by the commotion going on outside.

Bringing up the rear was the lone Hidden Leaf ninja in the group. With the signature leaf adorning her forehead, Uzumaki Kushina looked the most out of place, but at the same time, she looked extremely pissed and ready to head out into battle. In contrast to her future adult appearance, her hair flared out behind her and down her back, and she still wore an outfit similar to her siblings. She was the junior to Kanae by one year at 14 years of age, though her attitude indicated otherwise.

Anna held back her amped-up middle child as she gazed passively at the village head jōnin and leader. "Well, Mother, we're here as you requested," she said flatly, "What shall you have us do?"

"Grandmother, let me out there!" Kushina spat, wrenching against her mother's arm in vain, "I'm tired of these Cloud freaks trying to steal our family's secrets! Let me show them what they want and give them a greeting from the Uzumaki that they'll never forget!"

Anna didn't seem to be all that fazed by the outburst, though Kazuya most certainly was, and Kanae simply rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Honestly, little sister, when will you learn some sense?" she muttered loudly, "We all know why Grandmother asked us to come here; at least have some sense to read the atmosphere." As had been the case for quite the long time, everyone in the room (even young Kazuya, who was too scared to know any better) could sense the biting jealousy laced into her voice as she addressed Kushina.

The recently appointed jinchūriki was about to wheel on her older sibling but a firm and authoritative voice quickly squelched that. "That's enough," Katsuko said, her soft voice managing to silence the rising feud between sisters. "We have bigger problems at hand here, and we don't have much time. I want to make sure I do this right…seeing as it may be the last time…" With a grace and fluidity that was unbecoming of her many years on the planet, she slowly walked over to the three children. Unbeknownst to them, Anna tensed as she watched her sole surviving parent kneel down in front of the three children and look at them with an expression that she had not seen in a very long time.

"My wonderful grandchildren…" The matriarch's eyes grew watery as a rare smile graced her face, "This is not the way I wanted you to grow up…" She wiped at her eyes, and all three of the young adults were speechless at the show of emotion that the elder woman was displaying.

"Kazuya…" The young boy jumped, startled that the powerful lady was actually talking to him face to face, even though he could not see her. "You have been through so much in your short life, and I cannot pretend to imagine the types of pain and agony that you have had to deal with because of your illness." She gently touched the facial wrap, brushing the young man's cheek, but in a moment of strength, he didn't twitch a muscle. "One of these days, you will see again, and you will become a great individual. You'll find a cause to fight for, a woman to love, and a place to call home. Just remember to always keep in mind your roots, and don't ever lose the pure heart that you were born with. Having a chakra illness is not a death sentence, merely an obstacle to finding a better answer to problems you haven't yet discovered, and I know you will find those answers one day." The shy Uzumaki boy nodded quickly and briefly let go of his mother to grab at his grandmother's hand before she moved away, and the village leader held her movement for a few moments before shifting away.

The next person she moved to was now only a member of her prideful city in spirit. "Kushina, you have been burdened with something that no one should ever have to worry about, and you have been nothing but cheerful, upbeat, and confident in your ability to turn something negative into something positive." The astute clan leader could barely sense a snort of distain from her right, but she ignored it for the moment. "My old friend was right in granting you the Kyūbi because I think you, of anyone else in this village, have the best chance to succeed in taming a cataclysmic force that hasn't seen an ounce of peace and harmony since its inception. You need to never let your gift – because that's what it is, more than a curse – get in the way of true love and happiness. You'll do great things for the Hidden Leaf Village as you grow in mind and body, but I don't ever want you to forget where you came from, okay?" The most emotional of the three siblings was also nearly in tears; unlike her younger brother, all four women knew exactly why they were having this talk. Still, she held it together for the moment, trying to respect the moment.

Finally, Katsuko turned to her eldest granddaughter. "Oh Kanae…what a unique gift you have been given as well…" she murmured, lightly brushing a hair away from the teenager's pristine face. "You might be the most gifted Uzumaki to have been born into this clan. The abilities that you have been blessed with are enough to supply an entire clan of its own, and I can only foresee great things in your future…possibly even as the leader once your mother and I have stepped down." No one present missed the deliberate deception there, but they remained silent in deference to the rarely emotional grandmother. "You have such magical abilities in healing, genjutsu, hand to hand combat, tactics, swordsplay…you truly are the perfect mix of your late father and your mother. Never grow too obsessed with trying to be better than anyone else because you have enough raw talent and charisma to win over anyone trying to stand in your way." As the sexagenarian slowly stood up, even Kanae's eyes were wet after the ordeal.

A knock on the door startled the kids in their fragile state, but Katsuko and Anna weren't fazed in the least. "Come in!" she said, raising her voice slightly. Everyone turned and looked as a man, around the age of the thirty-something year old mother entered the room. He was of average height, wearing a simple brown tunic with darker pants underneath. He had shaggy black hair and somewhat tired eyes, but his face was graced with a smile that held a tinge of sadness. The elder jōnin took a deep breath and exhaled before explaining, seeing the questioning looks. "Children, this is Ise. He will be assisting you and your mother in your evacuation…"

That was all it took, as the middle child couldn't hold it any longer and threw herself into her grandmother's arms. "Grandma…" she wept, not even bothering to put on a façade. Kazuya was quick to follow behind her, squeezing his way in between the two females and burying his face into the leader's body.

As they began to cry in earnest, Kanae stood by, her outward appearance showing an continuance of her aloof and disinterested expression…except in the twitch of her lips. A bump at her shoulder somewhat broke the icy countenance, and the oldest daughter glanced in surprise at her mother, who despite the stern expression that she had adopted since they had arrived in the office indicated that she could join in if she wanted to. The cool demeanor and desire to say a final goodbye to her grandmother began to war inside of her head, and after a few moments, the latter won over. She walked, not particularly fast or slow, over to the huddling group and joined in, wrapping her arms around her younger siblings.

The man called Ise walked over and stood opposite of Anna, who turned to face him. "How have you been?" he asked softly, raising a hand filled with green medicinal chakra to her chest. "Have there been any issues lately?"

The stern mother's façade cracked slightly, as she grinned ruefully. "In case you haven't noticed, a war's breaking out on the coastline, but other than that, I haven't noticed too many problems." The newly revealed medic nodded thoughtfully as he waved his hand over the woman's chest and upper body for a few moments, pausing a little longer over her heart than he did anywhere else. After about two minutes of fine scanning, the chakra dissipated from his hand, and he had a satisfied look on his face.

"I don't sense any further problems…" he said, returning his face back to the mother's face, "…but just in case, that's why I'll be coming with you."

Anna raised an eyebrow at this, and the three children, who had broken from their embrace finally, looked somewhat confused as well. "Are you sure about this?" the older woman asked skeptically, "You aren't a combat ninja, and there's no guarantee that we will make it out in one piece."

"It's fine," the medic responded almost immediately, having expected a response similar to that. "With the exception of Kushina, we will give you alias and disguises that should allow us to pass without any worry through any checkpoints that we might run into."

Sensing the impending objection, Katsuko held her hand up and cut it off. "You will be allowed to help with the evacuation, but once the team reaches the safe zone, you will be returning to the Hidden Leaf Village with your team, who should be here soon…" While not the best answer, the fiery redhead couldn't find too much fault with it considering the circumstances.

A second knock on the door, caught everyone's attention once more, and Katsuko herself walked over to open it. Standing there was a team adorned in Hidden Leaf regalia – the other four members of Kushina's squad and the aid to the evacuees. The leader was an older gentleman with gray hair that stood on end, except in the back, where it was secured into a ponytail. A peculiar white handled saber was strapped over one shoulder, and he was the only one of them to wear issue gear.

The lone young woman in the three was the same age as the Kyūbi jinchūriki. She had long black hair that flowed down her back and was secured in place by her headband. Her black eyes were crinkled with concern, and if her sensei's hand wasn't on her shoulder, she likely would have rushed into the room to the side of her friend. She wore a simple black blouse, with a sword holstered over her back and two bladed gauntlets on her wrists. A neutral toned skirt completed her look, and a few shuriken holsters were barely visible right at the edge of where her legs disappeared.

The other genin was obviously an Inuzuka, by the markings on his face. In addition to the two red fang-shaped tattoos on his cheeks, his elongated canines revealed themselves every time the young man took a yawn out of boredom. His brown hair was messy and unkempt, and his chin showed the slightest signs of a beard beginning to grow in. He deviated the most from the Hidden Leaf's regular attire, wearing a large brown jacket and long khakis to fit his tall, gangly frame. His hands were covered by fingerless gloves, and he look supremely disinterested with what was occurring around him. At his feet was a young dog, smaller than even a puppy should be. It had very dark fur bordering on black, but in the right shade of light, a hint of red could be seen that matched his otherwise bright and vibrant crimson eyes. The pup began to claw at his handler's leg lightly, and the youth picked him up and lightly began to brush his coat.

"Kushina, you can go update your team while Ise and I give your mother and siblings a briefing," the Uzumaki clan leader said softly before turning back to the other group in the room. The jinchūriki looked hesitant, but a nod from the middle-aged redhead reassured her, and she hastened over to join them. "Now, Anna, your code name for the time being will be Fusō, Kanae will be known as Hinako, and Kazuya will become Na…" Her voice grew faint as the conversations diverged.

"Everything alright?" the leader of the Hidden Leaf squad asked tentatively, noting the somewhat tense atmosphere in the now cramped office space. "You could about cut the tension in here with a knife. Are you and your family about ready to leave?"

"I think so, Sakumo-sensei," the redhead responded to both questions at once, shooting another glance over her shoulder to make sure that there wouldn't be an outbreak of fighting right in the middle of such an important event. "I've told you about this before, but Grandmother and Mother don't exactly get along. It hasn't ever been a harmonious relationship, but after Father died…it's been hard whenever the two of them are in the same room. I think Mother blames her for Father's death; she thinks it was a bad idea to send him on that mission, and how she has the heart condition as well…"

The black haired girl's expression was full of worry as she interrupted and asked, "But are _**you**_ okay?"

"Don't worry about me, Mikoto. I'll be fine," Kushina replied, blinking away some tears furiously, "I just wish someone would let me help out with the fighting here. I'm sure I could do some good."

"You know that's not going to happen for a number of reasons," Hatake Sakumo rebuffed her gently, kneeling down and looking her in the eye. "And I wouldn't worry too much about your clan and your village. You can always rebuild, and I have a feeling these Cloud and Mist ninjas can't fully anticipate what's coming."

"That, and you'd probably screw something up…" the other male muttered under his breath.

"Shut it, Rōga!" the emotional redhead screeched in protest, giving him the exact reaction he was expecting. "I don't see you getting all excited about helping!" He rolled his eyes and waved a hand flippantly at her, just causing another wave of anger to roll over the young Uzumaki.

"Kushina." Remembering where she was, Anna's middle child shook her head to adjust and turned back around to face her grandmother and family. "It's time. You'd best be on your way," Katsuko said solemnly. The jinchūriki nodded, not trusting her voice to work without a strangled cry, and ran over to receive one last hug from her grandmother before returning to her team. Sakumo patted her on the shoulder, while Mikoto comforted her as they left the room. Kazuya and Kanae both did the same as their sister, receiving final hugs from their grandmother before exiting with Ise, and Anna made to follow close behind, but she was stopped by the sound of her name.

"What is it, Mother?" the thirty-something year old redhead asked, a bit of irritation laced into her voice, "We had best be on our way, should we not?"

"Come here," the village leader said, choosing to ignore the spiteful tone, "I need to tell you something." Anna's hand, which was clutching the doorknob, didn't move immediately, and the head jōnin wasn't sure that she would stay in the room. A few tense moments passed by, and while she wasn't making an overt movement to leave, her facial expression indicated that she wasn't all that interested in sticking around. Katsuko's face grew contemplative, with a hint of sadness, and said one more word – "Please?" Finally, Anna nodded once and released the door from her grasp, allowing it to glide closed. She took one step back into the office and not a step more.

The sounds of the impending battle outside dominated the setting, with muffled voices shouting orders to unseen ninja, families crying out for loved ones who were taking too long to gather their belongings, and faintly in the background, the crashing waves upon the massive embankment protecting all sides of the Hidden Whirlpool Village, where the Cloud and Mist forces were undoubtedly waiting for the right moment to make their move.

"I need to explain something, and whether or not you choose to believe me is up to you," the elder woman said, looking a lot older than she had for the past few minutes. "I know you've been bitter for a long time about what happened to your husband, and I know you blame me for putting him in the situation to begin with, but I want to try to clarify my rationale behind my thinking."

"What's there to explain?" Anna snapped back, her calm and collected visage starting to crack as anger seeped into her system. "I was home with a newborn and an undiagnosed heart condition. He had been working overtime for nearly four weeks trying to make sure we had money to pay for my treatments, and you thought it would be a good idea to send him on an assassination mission when you were mandated to give him three days off for rest and recuperation. I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED!" Her voice, which had been rising throughout her rant, grew to a max as she shouted at her mother, who actually looked slightly shaken by that but remained overall passive.

"Is that what you think?" she asked, the sadness in her voice now wholly identifiable. "Or is that what you came to believe after hearing the facts from his team after the completion of the mission?"

"Why? Is there something else I'm supposed to be aware of, _dear Mother?_" the angry widow hissed.

"Yes, and I want you to calm down and listen while I explain to you what actually happened." The stern tone was back in Katsuko's voice, and grudgingly Anna bit back her wrath and allowed her mother to continue. "The night he left for the mission, I was fully intending to grant him a week's worth of paid vacation and release time so he could stay at home and help you with the kids while you went to the hospital for the care that you desperately needed."

"So why did he leave on a mission that _you_ assigned to him and his team?" Anna challenged almost immediately.

"I didn't assign him that mission. He came to me with it, and he wouldn't leave until I approved his request. As you may know, he was distantly related to some families that had lived in the Waterfall Country, and he would receive intel from them every now and then about possible missions and requests that our village could aid with." The younger widowed redhead nodded, remembering the countless guests that they had entertained in their small abode. "You may remember the night before his left, he was conferring with one of those contacts, and from that particular person he received credible intelligence that a rather high-profile missing ninja from the Hidden Waterfall Village was in the area. This particular criminal was wanted for a number of reasons, including stealing a Waterfall-exclusive forbidden technique, the confirmed murder of three people and possibly more, and the attempted assassination of the First Hokage. Any one of those deeds would have garnered a most impressive bounty on its own, and this man had committed all of them, so bringing him in would have been a most profitable prize.

He came banging on my door late at night, requesting that I give him a few minutes of my time so he could present a proposal to me. I didn't see any reason to turn him down, so I let him in, and he explained the situation to me, including the massive bounty on this man…Kakuzu, I believe his name was…and how it could help to heal you. I, of course, was well aware of the issues that you had been having over the course of your pregnancy with Kazuya, and from that angle, I was in favor of finding a source of money great enough to help you overcome your crippling condition. On the other hand, while your husband was a talented ninja, I didn't feel comfortable sending him out against an S-ranked deviant alone and exhausted, so I offered to send one of our black ops teams instead, with the promise of a lucrative percentage of the mission payment for bringing this to my attention.

As you may guess, he vehemently refused to do that, wanting to earn the money on his own. I tried arguing with him and tried persuading him to let a team of trained professionals handle it, but he refused everything I threw at him, even threatening to go rogue in order to get the job done because he loved you so much. At that point, I had nearly exhausted all of my options, and I had to assign it as a mission so that I wouldn't have to put my daughter's husband on a bingo book alert. I did manage to convince him to take the black ops team with him with him in a support role only, but even that took a lot of effort on my part."

"But you still assigned it as a mission, didn't you?" Anna shot back, though she was obviously shaken by the explanation that she was given. "That's what the agents said after it was all said and done, that he said you had assigned him as the lead on a high profile assassination."

"After interrogating them myself and hearing the same thing, I concluded that he bent the truth to them as well, switching their roles around. The sad thing is that he had no need to do that; the pay would have been the same, regardless of how much of an impact he had in the fight.

The rest, you know, is history. They left late in the night and tracked the rogue to an abandoned beach on the coast of the Fire Country, where they engaged in combat with him. It was a brief skirmish because Kakuzu was much more powerful than any one of them had anticipated, and they were quickly outmanned, outgunned, and overwhelmed. Still, your husband wasn't willing to go down without a fight, and he ordered the black ops ninja to retreat while he held the criminal off. Because he had told them that he was assigned the leader of the mission, they believed him and retreated, trusting that he'd be right behind them. What they didn't know is that he stayed behind because he thought there was a chance that he could beat someone as strong as Kakuzu, and he unfortunately was mistaken in that mindset.

I tell you this not to try to seek forgiveness for something that I should have tried harder to avoid in the first place, but to allow you some closure in the final moments of a life that ended far too soon. I would have told you this earlier, but I felt too much shame with my part in it, no matter how little or insignificant it was." The sexagenarian took a deep breath and looked her daughter in the eye. "You can do with this information what you will, but I hope you know that I would never lie to you. Despite our past, you are still my daughter, and I love you dearly." She turned and picked up a few scrolls from her desk before making to walk past Anna and out of her office for possibly the last time. "You had best be on your way. Your group is the first to leave, and I want to make sure everything goes alrig…"

She was interrupted by her now lightly weeping daughter as she threw her arms around the elder woman. "Thank you, Mom…" she whispered, calling Katsuko by a name she hadn't heard in a long time, and that brought a tear to her eye as well.

Despite the impending war and invasion, and despite the seriousness of the situation, a mother and daughter reconciled, and somewhere, a husband's soul was partially laid to rest.

…xXx…

"Okay, so do you all understand the plan?" Sakumo asked, looking around at the young faces in front of him. It was about twenty minutes after they had left the head jōnin's office, and they were now standing at the entrance to the evacuation tunnel, waiting for the final member of their team to appear. The other advance groups were waiting nearby, but because of the presence of the White Fang of the Hidden Leaf and the Kyūbi jinchūriki, theirs was to be the first to depart, in case there were any issues on the other end that needed to be taken care of.

Rōga, as usual, was rather blasé about the whole situation, but he still nodded briefly in confirmation, with a yip from the puppy Benimaru as well. Mikoto looked somewhat rattled, as did Kazuya, but they both gave a shaky nod. Kanae and Kushina both looked extremely unhappy with the situation, but while the elder sister eventually gave her consent with a grudging nod, the younger wasn't about to give in without voicing her opinion one last time, not hampered now by her grandmother's pain and sadness.

"I'm not going anywhere until I help out my village and my people!" she snapped, standing defiantly away from the group; Kanae was the closest to her, and she was a couple of feet behind her, giving her a look that no one could decipher. "I'm not going to let my grandmother and clansmen die a pointless death!"

"I thought we'd gone over this earlier, Kushina…" the pseudo-legendary ninja tried to interject, but he was quickly cut off.

"I was just saying that earlier so my grandma wouldn't worry." Now no longer in the presence of the authoritative jōnin, she felt no need to use the stiff honorific. "I want to help, and I know I can if I use the Kyūbi's energy!"

Sakumo sighed; even after being her leader for years, he still wasn't always able to stop one of her rants when she got started and convinced she needed to do something. "I know you want to help, and I do too, but your grandmother has a plan, and we would get in the way more than we would help. And releasing the Kyūbi in the middle of a war is likely to do more harm than good, especially to you, don't you agree?"

As expected, he didn't get very far. "No, I DON'T agree, sensei!" she shouted back, "I don't care if I die, as long as the village is saved and we wipe out those Cloud and Mist scumbags!"

"What's going on here?" Everyone's heads turned, as Anna rushed down the stairs to join them. Almost all of them noted the red puffiness around her eyes but chose to not say a thing about it.

Kushina wheeled on her mother and continued her desperate campaign, "Sakumo-sensei won't let me stay to defend the village. Mom, I want to help out, and I know I can do some good!"

"Sweetheart, you know how much I wish we could allow that, but there are so many other factors to consider…" Anna started to say, but she was interrupted by a massive explosion that occurred much too close to their location.

"Battle stations!" someone nearby shouted, and the hustle and bustle of the crowds above them grew louder. Kazuya's face was now terrified, and Mikoto didn't look all that good herself, but Sakumo and Rōga kept a calm façade, even though they likely didn't feel all that calm themselves.

"We can't argue this any longer. We need to get going," the white-haired jōnin said, the urgency in his tone much more obvious now.

Anna turned on her middle child and put her hands on her shoulders. "He's right, sweetheart. Everyone here is fighting for your sake just as much as they are for the village. Don't make their sacrifice be in vain because you want to help. They have a plan, and your inclusion might make things worse rather than better." 

The feisty redhead slapped away her mother's arms and backed up a few steps. "No WAY! I'm going to help and there's nothing you can do to stop me." She wheeled around and made to run towards the staircase that led back up to the surface, and both Sakumo and Anna tensed up as if they were going to intercept her, but it turned out there was no need.

A fist buried itself deep in Kushina's gut, and the teen let out an anguished gasp. She looked up into the impassive eyes of her sister, and she muttered softly, "Kanae…why?"

"Because it's not your place," she replied just as quietly, holding her younger sibling as she collapsed to the ground, nearing unconsciousness. "It's my turn to be the hero in the family. You and Dad have already had your turns, and now it's mine. Sakumo-sensei, could you please come over here and help her?"

The assaulted sister was fighting to remain conscious, but she was fighting a losing battle, and the light was quickly fading from her eyes. She couldn't say a thing, but she did feel the burly arms of her teacher lift her easily from the ground, and she could tell that they entered the evacuation route by the immediate darkening of the ambient light.

A moment later, a loud thump sounded from where they had come from, and Kushina could faintly hear her brother cry out his odler sister's name, followed soon by a stern, somewhat frantic reprimand from Anna and some pounding on a wooden surface. Even though she still tried to fight it, the keeper of the Kyūbi eventually lost and allowed the darkness to overcome her.

_**The present…**_

"…and that's what happened," Kushina said blandly. She and Minato were sitting in the living room of their home. The now jōnin-level mother had just returned home, and she had been on somewhat of a trip down memory lane, having explained the circumstances of her departure in order to explain her purpose there to begin with.

"So Kanae stayed behind?" the blonde asked carefully, knowing all of this was a touchy subject.

"That's what sensei told me when I came to. Mother and Kazuya, along with that medic Ise, were long gone by the time I woke up. According to sensei, there had been a transport train bound for the Hidden Rain Village filled with all kinds of humanitarian supplies, and they stowed away on it along with some other refugees. Apparently the tunnel's exit was somewhere along the Fire Country's coastline, near a train depot."

"Have you heard from any of them since?" the Hokage pressed, having never heard any of this before now.

Kushina shook her head in the negative. "I received a coded letter from Mother about a month later, but all it said is that she was fine and had settled down with Ise and Kazuya, posing as a pair of civilian doctors who had traveled to Rain to help with the increasing number of patients in their hospitals. That was it, though, and I never had an opportunity to travel there after the war to confirm if everything was alright. As for Kanae…" she rubbed her gut, where she had been punched so many years prior, "…judging by the state of the place when I returned a few years later, I doubt that she survived. I counted the bodies myself and compared them to the roster that my grandmother had left me in our family storage, and everyone was accounted for except for her, since she wasn't on the list to begin with. If she had survived, she would have come here as soon as she could to meet back up with me."

Minato nodded thoughtfully, though he cached away a piece of information to ask someone about later when he had a chance. "That certainly is a mouthful, but why did you go there in the first place? Surely it wasn't to try to find your sister, was it?"

"Partly yes," she admitted, extracting the scroll that she had taken from the archives. "That girl from Hidden Grass…Karin, I believe it was…you may remember her biting her arm during the fights. That was an imperfect form of healing that my sister discovered that she possessed, and I thought that girl might be related to her."

She unraveled the scroll and handed it to her husband. "As you can tell…" she said as he glanced over it, "there's no mention of a child under her name. Granted, it was a long shot to begin with; there was a very small chance that she would have taken the effort to come back and update the registry, but my sister loved the Whirlpool Village just as much as I did, and I thought there was just a small possibility of that occurring."

Minato sighed heavily as he leaned back on the couch, making sure not to jostle his wife too much. "That's a lot to take in setting, huh," he murmured. "Are you sure you're alright?"

The redhead nodded, even though he could tell she was not completely comfortable sharing those stories about her family, even to her loved one. "What's in the past is in the past. All I can do is to continue praying that even one of them is still alive and focus on is the future…" A rattling at the door, indicative of their son inevitably forgetting that it was locked and he needed his key, knocked them both out of their stupor. "…and there's my boy now. It'll be good to see him after all of this." She stood up, but not before planting a kiss lightly on her husband's lips. "Thank you for listening to me. I really needed to get that off my chest," she murmured, pulling away with regret.

"It's okay. We all need an outlet every now and then," Minato replied immediately. "Now go see your son. He's been anxious to see you. I just want to look at this a little further…"

"Take as long as you want," was the answer he received before the mother glided away to the front door.

As the sounds of a surprised and elated Naruto floated through the walls of his home, and the equally ecstatic squeals of delight from Kushina matched her son's in volume, the blonde Hokage remained oddly silent, his eyes focusing on one name in particular.

'_There's no way to be sure, but I need to ask Jiraiya-sensei about this,' _he thought before carefully rolling up the scroll and sealing it once more. _'There's too much overlap for this to be a coincidence…he'll know for sure about this boy…this Uzumaki Kazuya…'_

…xXx…

AN: Please review and stay tuned! I've dropped so many interesting pieces of information in this chapter; I'm interested to see if anyone can catch them. (They're pretty obvious if you do some research…)

**Review Responses:**

**Guest:**Thanks a bunch! I hope you'll leave me that more comprehensive review at some point, I'd love to read through it! Thank you for your kind words, that made my day when I read it!


	24. (Exam Interlude 4) Chapter 22

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** After a week of traveling and prowling around her village for information that wasn't there, Kushina finally resorted to taking her team of ANBU to the secure archives to retrieve a scroll, seemingly unaware of the lone figure monitoring them from a distance who appeared to also be a member of the Uzumaki clan. Meanwhile, back in the village, Naruto and Minato had continued the former's training in the latter's signature technique, to little immediate success. The genin was actually having more luck with the second, power-related step than with the chakra control first step, but he found some inspiration thanks to the timely appearance of Team Guy, engaged in some sort of odd training ritual. Stealing Neji away, he inquired about some general characteristics of the Hakkeshō Kaiten (Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven), which the Hyūga youth divulged after making sure they weren't asking for too much and poking fun at the young blonde for his botched attempt at advice seeking. The help yielded immediate dividends, as Naruto noted a marked improvement in his understanding of the technique. Elsewhere, the family of the Kazekage was engaged in some hardcore training, and as father and youngest son dueled at a level far higher than many could handle, Temari and Kankurō hatched a plan to try to improve Gaara's relationship with Rasa.

**AN:** Back to the normal timeline, even though we got back to that at the end of the flashback. New mission that all of you are likely familiar with to wrap up the exam interlude, and then after its completion we'll be on to the finals!

Also, if you didn't yet read the new mission I introduced earlier in the story, check out the two chapters following the Zabuza mission for something new!

**(Exam Interlude) Chapter 22 – The Calm Before the Snow Storm! A New Mission Awaits!**

Team 7 stood at attention in the office of the Fourth Hokage, awaiting the appointment of a new mission. The blonde leader sat behind his immaculate desk, scribbling away on a piece of paper in front of him, and to his right (to the surprise of a few of those present) was the Toad Sage Jiraiya, sitting on top of a large chest to the right of his former student. Sakura and Sasuke couldn't figure out why such an important figure would be present there, Kakashi didn't really seem to care or even take notice (though his expression was sour for another reason), and Naruto (to the confusion of his teammates) kept shooting the elder man some odd looks, almost as if he was annoyed with him.

Finally, after a few minutes of hasty writing, Minato seemed satisfied with his writing and set the document aside in one of the file trays on the edge of his wooden desk. Immediately after, he pulled a large file from the tray marked 'Unassigned Missions' and placed it in front of him before looking up at his son's squad. "Team 7, I'm glad to see you made it here on time," he said, trying and failing to hide a small grin. "I see that my alteration to our meeting time did wonders for your attendance record."

Sasuke and Sakura both smirked, with the latter and Naruto shooting victorious looks at their time-challenged leader. To his credit, all Kakashi could do was sigh in resignation as he replied, "Yes, yes, that was a wonderful joke, sensei."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Kakashi," Minato replied benignly, though everyone could see his pleasure at the little jab. "It's not my fault that my secretary delivered the wrong time to you." After a pointed look from the cyclopean ninja, he relented with a chuckle, "Okay, maybe it's slightly my fault, but I have things to do today, much like you." The gray-haired jōnin couldn't find any fault in that statement and sighed in defeat.

"What's our mission, dad?" the younger blonde blurted out, eagerly bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Where are we off to this time?"

The last Namikaze chuckled at his son's ever-present enthusiasm. "You should probably pack some winter gear because this will take you to the Land of Snow." That appeared to catch Team 7's attention sufficiently, as both Sakura and Naruto looked rather excited; Sasuke however was less than pleased if the look on his face was any indication. "Your job will be to protect the lead actress of the Princess Gale movie franchise…"

A massive explosion from the other side of the room interrupted his explanation. "WHAT?" Naruto exclaimed at the top of his lungs, causing Jiraiya to chuckle as he poked at his ears in a futile attempt to restore hearing. "You want us to be Fujikaze Yukie's bodyguards?! Are you kidding me?!"

Sasuke and Sakura had leaned away from their loud teammate upon that rather loud outburst, and while the pink-haired kunoichi immediately slapped him over the head while simultaneously trying to restore her hearing, the Uchiha just looked nonplussed. "Um…excuse me for my ignorance Lord Hokage, but am I supposed to know who Fujikaze Yukie is?" he asked, a hint of uncertainty present in his tone.

Before the Leaf's leader could respond, Naruto had already wheeled around and was in the face of his best friend. "Do you live under a rock or something?" he asked incredulously, "She's only the most attractive, most successful, most amazing actress of our generation! She's won all kinds of awards and honors, and she has…like, TEN movies released in the last five years! How the heck have you not heard of her before?!"

"Get out of my face, you moron!" Sasuke grumbled, shoving away the angry mug that had pierced his personal space. "Let me get this straight - is she a movie star or something like that?" At the very energetic nod, he rolled his eyes, understanding a little better the confusion. "Well that explains a lot. I never go to the movies if I can help it. I think they're a waste of time and money."

"But…but…but…it's Princess Gale…and Fujikaze Yukie…and…and…" Naruto began to just babble in a failed attempt to get his teammate to understand, and Minato retook control of the conversation before things went any further south.

"At the risk of getting back on topic…" Both of the blonde's teammates snickered slightly at that, "…this is a relatively serious matter. Fujikaze Yukie is known worldwide as possibly the most successful actress since some of the classic artists of Jiraiya's time, but what not many know is that the identity of Fujikaze Yukie isn't her true identity, and the protection of that information is more the goal of this mission than her protection throughout the course of the filming of her movie, though that does also bear considering as well."

That definitely threw Team 7 for a loop, though Kakashi remained conspicuously stoic. "What do you mean, Dad?" Naruto asked slowly. "Why would she have a different identity?"

The leader of the Hidden Leaf smiled grimly and shifted his vision to his former student. "I'll let your sensei answer that question," he said simply, sitting back to listen to the explanation.

The three teens wheeled around and looked at the masked jōnin with varying expressions of surprise. "What's he talking about, sensei?" Sakura asked in confusion, "Why would you have a reason to know about this?"

The grey-haired technique master sighed and shook his head to clear away the cobwebs on his memory. "Because I was the one to extract her from the Land of Snow when it became clear that her presence there and identity were more harmful than helpful," he said slowly, each word sounding like it took a lot of effort to spit out. "Her real name is Kazahana Koyuki, the daughter of the former daimyo and the niece of the current daimyo of the Land of Snow. A little over ten years ago, her uncle, a nasty piece of work named Kazahana Dotō, and a group of rebellious Snow ninja had grown tired of the path that Koyuki's father had carved for his country and decided to attempt a coup d'état. As you might be able to surmise, it was successful, and I was only able to save the princess before they took over the nation."

"Still, this doesn't sound like a mission worthy of ninja, does it?" Sasuke asked doubtfully. "Wouldn't hired bodyguards be more useful in this regard?"

Minato gave his former student a look, and Kakashi shook his head, choosing to explain himself. "The other reason why Kazahana Dotō wished to take over the Land of Snow was because of some sort of mystical power that was hidden underneath the snowdrifts covering the land. He was convinced that Koyuki held the key to unlocking the vast potential of this generator for some reason, and he's been covertly chasing after her ever since I helped her slip through his grasp. This film shoot is one of the few times she's dared return to her homeland in the last ten years, and definitely more public than most of her previous visits, and I have no doubt that he will make an attempt to recapture her."

The genin now looked somewhat mollified, even Naruto who sported a grim look that was far different from the excitable look that appeared upon first mention of the mission. "Gosh, Dad, is this guy that strong?" he asked hesitantly. "Are we the best ones to send on a mission like this?"

Sakura added, "With all due respect, Lord Hokage, I think this would be better suited for an ANBU team. If this man is powerful enough to take over an entire country, I'm not sure we'd be that effective against him."

"And then there's the matter of where this mission is located," Sasuke pointed out. "Of all of us here, I believe only Kakashi has actually been to the Land of Snow. We're at a disadvantage in locale and in abilities."

The blonde leader nodded, allowing the comments to sink in, though his grin showed that he was neither angry nor surprised; rather, he seemed impressed. "All of those are excellent points. Let's start with the location." He gestured to the wall behind him to the right, and Team 7 as a whole turned their eyes to the calendar, currently reading the date as October 12. "Here, in the Land of Fire, we have a few months out of the year that are wintry, and we'll probably have our first snowfall in the first few weeks of November. However, the Land of Snow has been buried under a perpetual winter for years. It's not at the level of blizzard conditions for most of the year, but it can get that severe during what most consider the later winter months after New Year's. Let me assure you that you will be perfectly fine, except that you'll need to break out your jackets, hats, scarves, and gloves a little earlier than normal.

As for Kazahana Dotō and his team, I chose Team 7 because of your experience with ice manipulators. The Land of Snow was founded by the remnants of a clan that had fled from the Land of Water a few years before the kekkei genkai extermination campaign had begun – you may remember the last two members of the Kōsetsu clan that battled alongside Zabuza?"

"Wait, so these Snow ninja are related to Haku and Shiro?" Sasuke asked skeptically.

Minato nodded. "That's right, though their abilities are vastly different. Here, let me show you what I mean. Just keep in mind a lot of this is speculation due to Hidden Mist's notorious security measures, but I think I have the gist of it." The last Namikaze opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a blank piece of paper and a pen, and the genin of Team 7 leaned in to watch as he began to draw. "The twins were members of the main line of the admittedly small clan. They received a full dosage of their family's ability to manipulate ice and water where any amount of liquid, small or vast, could be turned into a weapon at their choosing." He wrote their two names and circled them, connecting that to via a line to a point at the top of the page and writing 'Hidden Mist' along that line. "Somewhere in the bloody history of Hidden Mist, the idea of bloodline purity got convoluted, and the majority of the clan departed the village to avoid the oncoming purge, not knowing that their contingency did not have a pure amount of the bloodline." He drew another line from that dot and ended it with a very large circle, and he labeled that path Hidden Snow. "Over time, they interbred with the locals up north, and that further diminished their capacity to use their clan's fabled techniques, and so now, while almost everyone in the Hidden Snow Village has the capability to use Hyōton (Ice Style), only a few of the most gifted, like Kazahana Dotō and his crew, can to any degree, and even they are restricted to areas with ice; they don't have the ability to transform water at all."

Sakura and Sasuke nodded, beginning to understand the point a little better. "So you want to send us because we have experience battling ninja with that type of skillset?" the Uchiha said thoughtfully. "Still, there is a problem. I had a lot of trouble even getting the ice that Shiro and Haku used to chip, much less melt. Why would these guys be any different?"

Jiraiya spoke up this time to answer the question. "I wondered that as well when Minato posed this mission to me, but after discussing with Kakashi what he saw during the brief skirmishes that he was a part of, we came to the conclusion that these Snow ninja have control of what they can see but have absolutely no ability to change the physical properties of snow and ice without a significant amount of concentration and energy. The chakra flow is much more stunted as well; Naruto, as you've seen from your training, you can attest to the fact that water is an excellent conduit of chakra, but not many natural materials are unless they have been specially engineered for that purpose, like chakra-hardened metal." The jinchūriki nodded, remembering that the first water step had been relatively easy compared to the rotation-geared second step. "As a result, your Uchiha fire techniques and whatever Kakashi has gleamed throughout the years should be more than sufficient to disrupt their techniques. As long as Sakura and Naruto can provide adequate distractions to prevent them from continuing to use the ice around them, this should be a simple mission."

The genin nodded, looking mostly placated, but Kakashi was the next to speak up. "Do you have any data on these guys, sensei?" he asked. "Do they have any other abilities that we need to worry about?"

Minato almost immediately shook his head. "That's another reason I don't feel bad about sending a genin squad until I can spare an ANBU team. These Snow ninja rebels are one-trick ponies, very capable with ice but next to worthless without it. Normal Snow ninja have extremely capable Suiton (Water Style) proficiencies, but that's not the case with the rebels. Just keep them occupied and as disengaged with their surroundings as possible, and there shouldn't be any issues."

That seemed to be a good ending point, but Naruto wasn't quite done yet, as another thought had popped into his mind. "Hey, Dad, is it a good idea to send us? Both Sasuke and I need to prepare for the Chūnin Exams. I would think that takes priority over a mission like this," he asked, though his expression betrayed how hard it was to admit that.

"Ah, yes, I thought that would come up," Kushina's husband said nonchalantly, "If I recall correctly, Shisui told me the other day that he had given Sasuke a sufficient amount of self-study material for both he and Sakura to work on moving forward." The youngest living Uchiha nodded as he briefly pulled a scroll out of his hip pouch and waved it before stowing it away. Naruto looked sufficiently confused at this as his eyes darted back and forth between his two teammates but remained silent until his father caught his attention. "As for you, my overly energetic son, Jiraiya here has told me that you've gotten past the second step, correct?"

"Just need to combine the two and I'll be one step closer to unseating your old ass, Dad," the younger blonde quipped.

"Keep talking, and you'll see how old I am," Minato retorted. "Now hush. I've instructed Kakashi to keep on you about your training, but I also want to you have some fun. I know that all three of you haven't had much time to sit back and relax, so try to have a good time on the movie set." He took a moment to breathe as well as allow any questions to form in the minds of his squad before continuing. "If that's all, you are dismissed. They will be expecting you by the end of tomorrow at the shooting location outside of the Land of Snow's capital."

"Thank you, sensei," Kakashi said quietly, nodding his head in confirmation as his team did in suit. They turned to leave, but not before Naruto nicked a few pieces of candy from the bowl on his father's desk.

At the same moment, a light started to flash on his desk phone, and he told his son, "I believe that's Teams 8 and 10 reporting for their mission assignment. Go ahead and tell them to come on in." The blonde genin turned slightly red once he heard that but nodded anyways and staggered back to his friends, not seeing the smirk hidden under Minato's hands.

Jiraiya also sent a quick note as the blonde departed, "I'll meet you at the gate before you leave, Naruto, in case you have any questions." All he received was an annoyed wave in response, and the Toad Sage smirked as he bid farewell to his former student and departed via his normal portal – the window.

The perpetually late jōnin held open the door and allowed his team to slip out into the small waiting area on the landing by the staircase. As stated earlier, the entirety of Teams 8 and 10 were indeed milling around the area. Shikamaru was leaning against the wall, idly rubbing the leaf of a nearby potted plant between his fingers. Chōji and Ino sat on a bench next to him, with the former happily munching on some strips of beef jerky and the latter thumbing through the apps on her phone with a decidedly bored look on her face. Shisui and Keisei were standing nearby, chatting about some sort of sport. Likewise, Kiba and Shino were doing the same about some other subject to the left of the door to the office, and Hinata sat on another bench, absently petting Akamaru.

They all looked up at the sound of the door opening, and Team 7 soon migrated over to the Ino-Shika-Chō trio. "Where are you off to this time?" Shikamaru asked, recognizing the mission dossier in Kakashi's hand.

"Winter wonderland, apparently," Sasuke muttered; he wasn't too much of a fan of the cold despite his proficiency in fire wielding.

"Yeah, hope you enjoy your time training while we're rubbing elbows with the rich and famous in the Land of Snow," Naruto added smugly, noting the curious looks pop up on everyone's faces.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kiba asked as he and Shino joined the conversation; Hinata stayed behind but kept her ear tuned in.

"You know the Princess Gale movies?" Of course, everyone had, to the annoyance of one of the Uchihas in the room, and as such they all nodded. "Well, we just got assigned to be her bodyguards!" Naruto exclaimed gleefully, beginning to cackle at the sight of his friends' faces as they realized what he meant.

"Wow…wow wow wow. You're a lucky bastard, aren't you?" the dog trainer grumbled, slapping away the eager blonde mug that was grinning at him like a fox. "I think your dad's been drinking or something because there's no way he should allow you to protect a movie star…"

"I don't even know who this girl is, and I can agree with that…" Sasuke muttered

"…and I bet you won't even let me get an autograph, won't you?" Kiba continued. Akamaru jumped down from Hinata's grasp and walked over to his owner, releasing a brief bark of questioning.

"Well…" the keeper of Kurama pretended to consider the request for a moment, taking no little amount of happiness in his expression. "…I guess there's a chance…yeah…I might do that for you…for a price…"

Kiba wasted no time in responding. "Name it, and I'll do it."

Of course, that was the wrong answer, and Naruto's face quickly burst into a calculating grin. "We'll see. I'll text you later. Adios, amigos." With a flippant wave, he quickly began walking towards the stairs, and many noticed he was in a hurry to escape. Ino put an immediate stop to that, quickly jumping up from her seat and standing in his way. The male blonde halted in front of her and gave her a desperate look that only she could see before covering it up with a false smile. "Do you want an autograph too?" he asked with a nervous laugh.

The Yamanaka heir looked at him with a critical eye; she was the only one who could see his face, and as such she was the only one who could see his true expression, one of panic, and she unfortunately knew the cause of that. So, she did the only thing she knew to do.

"Well, duh!" she snapped irritably, grabbing the front of his jacket. "What, you think we all don't know who Princess Gale is? You'd better get us all autographs! What kind of friend are you, huh?"

"Okay, okay!" the jinchūriki said, waving his hands defensively. "Fine, I'll get autographs for everyone, but I don't know why it's such a big deal…" his voice trailed off as his eyes unfocused slightly, but no one really noticed because Kiba began to gripe.

"You're damn right, you will," Inuzuka grumbled, even as he nodded in obvious pride. "Geez, you'd think we weren't friends or something…"

"Alright, guys, you can socialize later," Shisui said, not in a reprimanding tone but in a way that left no doubt, "We shouldn't keep the Hokage waiting." As Shikamaru and Chōji stood up and the rest of Team 8 turned around, he threw over his shoulder, "Sasuke, I'll look forward to seeing your progress when you get home, alright? Good luck with your mission." The younger cousin nodded and followed Sakura and Kakashi down the stairs, as they had already started to leave.

Ino and Naruto still stood there, though, somewhat disconnected from reality. In actuality, they were having an intense mental conversation, created from the incidental contact created from the grabbing of the jinchūriki's jacket.

"You didn't ask her?" the Yamanaka heir screeched, once more grabbing her friend and shaking him repeatedly, earning a hearty eruption of laughter from the giant fox whose snout on top of which they were arguing.

"I was going to, but then all this stuff happened, and then this mission, and…and…and…" Naruto stammered, grasping at straws that weren't there.

"I swear to whatever god's out there, if you don't get your shit together by the time the Chūnin Exams are over, I'm going to do it for you!" the mind reader hissed, releasing the orange jacket but instead sticking her finger in the whiskered teen's face. "Do you hear me?"

"Yeah, yeah! Calm down alright?" Naruto said defensively. "I'll do it." He gently pushed her hand out the way and ran his own through his hair in annoyance. "Wow, what's your deal? Why do you care so much about this? It's not like Hinata's your best friend or anything."

The platinum blonde gave him a dumbstruck look before her face broke out into a victorious grin, and the jinchūriki realized his mistake a moment later, wincing in regret. "Juicy information aside, and thank you very much for finally slipping, there are a number of things at work here. First of all, even if we aren't bosom buddies she's still my friend, you moron, and I don't want any friend of mine to suffer any more than necessary."

"Suffer…?" the male teen tried to ask, but Ino wouldn't let him.

"Second of all, you're also my friend, and I want to you be happy just like I want her to be happy, so get your ass in gear and get this done so you can focus on your real goals. You know, like being the Hokage and all that nonsense?" She took a deep breath and sighed. "And then there's the sanity of the entire village…I feel like I'm repeating myself…I'm getting a headache from having to put together your social life…" she muttered under her breath.

"**I like this one. She's got some spark to her**," Kurama's deep voice rumbled, "**Oi, Naruto, why don't you like this one? I could handle having someone like this keeping you in check for some amusement…**"

Ino looked rather pleased at gaining the chakra construct's approval, even if it was a misplaced honor, and peered at Naruto with a falsely sweet look, almost daring him to say something, but he wouldn't budge, waving his hands in protest. "Uh uh, no way, I'm not going down that road. I'm starting to figure out that anything I say to you gets me in trouble somehow, and anything I say will end up in the village gossip the very next day. I have to deal with the occasional fangirl enough as it is."

The ponytailed teen shrugged, conceding the point, and the giant fox underneath them growled in annoyance. "**You two had best wrap this up, one of your annoying friends is beginning to wonder what's up. Don't forget, time is slow here, not stopped…**"

Back in reality, Kiba had to leap back in surprise as Ino suddenly moved, his face having been inches from hers. "Geez, don't scare a guy like that," he grumbled, holding his chest in panic. "What's the deal, huh? You both looked like you zoned out."

"Maybe you should mind your own business…" Naruto muttered, lighting punching his friend in the shoulder as he made to descent the staircase after his team. "See you guys later. I'll let you know about the autographs once I get there and meet Princess Gale."

The dog trainer just looked confused, but Ino turned him around by his shoulders and marched him back into the Hokage's office. "Nothing to worry about," she said smoothly, "Just a private conversation about you-know-who." The slit eyes of the Inuzuka youth lit up with understanding, and he nodded slightly before pausing to shut the door behind him.

Minato looked up from his current paper shuffling, another singular file now lying in front of him, and smiled benignly at the two squads standing in his now rather crowded office. "How's everyone doing today?" he asked politely.

"We aren't too bad, Lord Hokage," Keisei replied for everyone in the room, "Just looking forward to receiving the information for our next mission."

"Well, let's get right into it, shall we?" The blonde leader flipped open the rather substantial file in front of him, and both teams leaned in to get a better look. "Before I talk about the specifics, you may be wondering why I summoned two squads here, so let me explain that first." He pulled the top two sheets of the dossier out and turned them around for the ninja to survey. Each showed a single young woman, only a few years older than the genin in the room. "These are the rulers of the Lands of Vegetables and Birds. This woman here…" and he pointed to the file on the left, "…is the daughter of the former daimyo of the Land of Vegetables and current leader of those lands, as well as the unofficial Hidden Flower Village run by the Flower Ninja clan, and this other woman…" pointing to the picture of the younger female on the right, "… is the daughter of the former leader of the Land of Birds and current daimyo. The Vegetables leader, Haruna has been working for a long time to put a peace treaty and trade agreement in place with the Land of Birds with the hopes that the two combined countries can force the Land of Forests, and the Hidden Grass Village by extension, into a larger conglomerate. Grass has long suffered from economic deficiencies, though their ninja force is respectably substantial, and both of the smaller nations have the economic backbone to support them, but there has been a significant amount of resistance to that effort from the leaders of Grass. Toki has been behind this effort and is willing to concede the use of her samurai and Vegetables' ninja if Grass would ally with them, but it's been rough getting this off the ground."

"I assume that's not why we're here, though?" Shikamaru asked almost immediately. "You don't need sensing and strategic squads to mediate a peace treaty. What's gone wrong with the negotiations?"

"Very good observation, Shikamaru," Minato complimented him, and the lazy genin waved off the praise in his usual blasé manner. "He is correct. When Haruna showed up to the meeting this past week, Toki never appeared, but cursory inspection of the area surrounding the capital of the Land of Birds shows nothing out of the ordinary, and the signals from their cell phones are all still active, so we know where they are, but not why they are there. Being allies with both of these nations, I thought it best to investigate this, so that is why I asked both Teams 8 and 10 to do this mission."

"Shisui!" The half-blinded Uchiha stood at attention as he was addressed directly. "Your team will be taking off to the Land of Birds to figure out what has happened to Lady Toki. Do not engage anyone unless you absolutely have to in order to complete the mission. We don't know what threats may be lying in wait for us on the route Toki's group was supposed to take." Sasuke's cousin absorbed all of the information and nodded to confirm his understanding.

"Keisei, your team will take a diversion to the Palace of Paradise located near the border of the Lands of Fire, Vegetables, and Birds where this meeting was supposed to have taken place." The blonde leader paused for a moment, looking at the younger Sarutobi brother before him, before opening one of the drawers on his desk and extracting a folded map. He opened a portion of it, which the squads could see was of the Land of Fire, and seemingly was pleased with what he saw. "You will have to pass by the Fire Temple on the journey, so it may be worth stopping there and seeing what the inhabitants have to say about this. They may have noticed something that's worth knowing. In fact, it's probably safer for the meeting to take place there, so I will send notice to the Palace of Paradise for them to make haste to the Fire Temple. You will guard Haruna there and wait for Toki to be escorted there, but there should be no need to mediate past that; the Vegetables and Birds ninja and samurai should be sufficient for the duration of the meeting." The tightening of Keisei's features wasn't missed by the genin of Team 10, but they chose not to say anything.

"Is that all, sir?" Shisui quickly asked, trying to deflect the awkward atmosphere.

Minato reviewed the files in front of him and seemed satisfied. "Should be everything. It would be best for you to leave as soon as possible, both to ensure a speedy arrival and to hopefully prevent any harm to Toki, unlikely as that is." All the squads nodded and began to proceed out of the office.

As soon as they had all filed out, the blonde Hokage breathed a sigh that he wasn't aware that he had been holding. Wordlessly, he took the files on his desk from Teams 7, 8, and 10 and placed them in the open drawer marked "Assigned/Departed." He stood up and stretched, having not moved from the seat in almost an hour, before turning to face the village out of the spectacular view that his office windows afforded him. He smiled fondly for a moment, thinking about how proud he was of the evolution of Hidden Leaf, but the expression faded quickly, and he began to go around to each pane to draw the curtains shut.

As the light level tipped to nearly nothing, Minato walked briskly to the door and placed his palm on the molding surrounding it. A previously invisible seal lit up and spread over the entire wooden portal, effectively locking out everyone that previously had access to the room.

That having satisfied his concerns about privacy, the blonde village leader now approached an inconspicuous closet against one of the walls of the office in a more composed manner. Once more, he put his hand on the door, and another seal erupted to life, this one unlocking the cabinet for access. Upon opening the door, Minato quickly scanned over the contents. He ignored the numerous scrolls marked with all sorts of warnings and precautions, the odd variety of weapons that were stashed away, and vials of various mystery liquids and substances, instead opting to grab the two file folders marked with "CONFIDENTIAL" lying on the bottom shelf. As he turned to walk back to his desk, the door to the cabinet swung back closed, and the locking seal engaged once more, flaring to life for a moment before fading from view.

Kushina's husband sat down and laid the two files in front of him. The one on top was marked with absolutely no information at all, with confidential stickers and black marker long since obscuring any past indication of what the folder might have held. The other file was less marked up, and the words "Investigation into the Disappearance of Se… and Katō…" could be seen briefly, but that was obviously a secondary concern now, as Minato opened the top bundle of papers. Inside was much the same as the outside, with black marker liberally applied over the text such that it was impossible to ascertain the true nature of the file. The one visible segment was a dossier, with the slight yellowing of the edges indicating the age of that particular piece of paper. Much of that was also obscured by ink, and a photo paper clipped to the sheet covered the original photo that once adorned the file.

This particular photograph was one taken during prisoner processing. The man held a tag that indicated his identification number, and the words "MAX SECURITY" also adorned the board. His black hair was cropped short, and scars littered his face. His mouth was set in a permanent snarl, and his eye screamed of hatred for whoever had captured him. The remnants of a battle robe could be seen around his neck, the result of a difficult duel long ago, and similarly his features showed some signs of fresh cuts and dirt.

Minato studied this picture for a long time, deep in thought. Not a thing could be heard except for the occasional chirping of a bird outside his window, and no one came near the door; he had freed his afternoon schedule for just this reason.

Slowly, his hand crept towards his intercom and pushed the button that connected him with his secretary. The device buzzed, and a moment later, the cheery voice of his young secretary interrupted the calm of his still office. "What can I do for you, Lord Hokage?" she chirped, not having any knowledge of the mindset of her boss.

Minato cleared his throat before speaking. "I've finished my mission briefings for the morning, Atsuko, so if anyone needs anything from me, could you tell them that I will be unavailable until tomorrow morning?" he asked, trying to keep his voice neutral.

Obviously she couldn't tell anything was wrong because she immediately replied, "That shouldn't be a problem, but I didn't see anything like that on your calendar. Is everything alright?"

"My apologies," he said, "I'm visiting the maximum security prison near Hidden Grass, and I'll need to be off grid there. It's a last second arrangement, you see; I have an important meeting there that just came up."

Atsuko paused for a moment but didn't seem to find anything wrong with this; past events like this had occurred, and she hadn't batted an eye. In that moment, he was grateful for as good of a secretary as she was. "I understand completely. Shall I forward any calls to your cell phone?"

"No, just let them leave a message on my office phone," he said, maybe a little quicker than necessary.

"Alright then! Have a wonderful rest of the day, Lord Hokage! Good luck with your meeting!" she said before cutting off the intercom, blissfully unaware of the heavy nature of his request.

The blonde leader released another held breath before standing up. He scooped up the top file and tucked it into his coat before placing the other into one of his desk drawers. He undid the blinds, allowing light to flood his office once more, so he could unclasp one of his windows, and he silently slipped out the way his student normally entered, leaving his office sealed to any intruders.

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! A million Monopoly dollars to the first person who can figure out what the hell's going on!

**Review Responses:**

**Fireofargentis: **Don't be so hard on yourself, man. Any review is good, no matter what you have to say. Even the rudest and shyest individuals can leave something that helps me out. You're fine, and I thank you for taking the time to review.

That being said, interesting that you thought that Tsunade and Shizune are the two Orochimaru and Kabuto were conversing about. Regardless of who those two people are, I thought it was decently obvious that they weren't willing parties, but I'll leave you to decide whether or not your guess was on the money. And don't worry about Anko, the main target of that comment was the Third Hokage. She's already made an appearance, and I like her as well, so she'll be a common face along with some other infrequently shown Leaf ninja. Once again, though, thanks for the review!

**guedesbrawl: **That was by no means a spoiler of any kind. All I meant was that if there was any sort of relationship to foster, it would be in the future, at least after the Chūnin Exams and probably further out. Naruto could just as easily end up with Fū, that would be an interesting approach…

As for the Uchiha mix-up, thanks for catching that. I edited the wording to make more sense. Thanks, man!

**Caspian123: **Is Nagato Naruto's uncle? Have I mentioned Nagato by name in this story so far? I can't remember…hmm…

**Rose Tiger: **Don't worry, anything for you, my loyal reader. ;)

**Guest:** Aww, thanks, I appreciate that! :)

**Quinn1989: **Please keep reading! :)


	25. (Exam Interlude 5) Chapter 23

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language, including some severe language in this chapter, and some mildly graphic imagery, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Team 7 traveled to the head office to receive the information for their next mission. This one was to take them to the Land of Snow, where they were assigned to protect Fujikaze Yukie – aka Kazahana Koyuki, the niece of the current despot daimyo Kazahana Dotō – while she shot for her latest film in her former homeland. Concerns were brought up by the two genin still in the Chūnin Exams, but Minato assured them that there was nothing to worry about. As they left, they were met by Teams 8 and 10, and Naruto rubbed it in their faces that he was going to be rubbing elbows with an international movie star. Ino had a brief mental chat with the blonde before he departed, and the other two squads learned of their own missive, with Shisui's team going to look for the lost leader of the Land of Birds, Lady Toki, and Keisei's team going to the Fire Temple to meet up with Lady Haruna of the Land of Vegetables. As they left to take up their own missions, Minato locked down his office and pulled two classified files from his safe. One he left in his desk for later, while the other he pocketed as he alerted his secretary that he was departing for the maximum-security prison in the Hidden Grass Village before covertly heading out.

**AN:** Hope you enjoy!

**(Exam Interlude) Chapter 23 – Investigations Everywhere! International Crises Abound!**

Within the thick forests surrounding the Hidden Grass Village, a sudden flash of light perforated the otherwise dreary and rainy canopy of the tree-filled lands, and a figure phased into view amongst the weeds. Namikaze Minato stood up very slowly and looked around, recognizing one of his specialty kunai hidden in the roots of a nearby pine. He glanced around and observed the area around him, trying to see through the radically different environment. The pounding rainfall made it difficult to see or hear anything, but it was hard to miss the massive castle a few hundred feet in front of him. The trees really didn't do much to hide it, and he took a moment to admire the building.

It was an imposing structure, and it was obvious that it had been modified many times over the past few hundred years. The remains of the main classical structure were still evident in the central core of the complex, and despite the obvious age of the castle, it was clear that it had been meticulously cared for.

The same couldn't be said for the other parts of the prison. Surrounding the remnants of the ancient castle were a number of more modern structures, made out of nothing but drab concrete and sporting nothing more than mere slits for windows. They much more resembled giant, pointed bomb shelters than regular buildings, and from his numerous visits in the past, Minato knew that those were the homes of the many prisoners held in the fortress.

"Well, I'm glad to see you haven't gone to any great effort to renovate the place, Mui…" the blonde Hokage muttered, seemingly to no one in particular.

A response immediately emanated from the woods. "Would you expect anything different for a maximum security prison, Lord Hokage?" a tall, severe-looking man asked rhetorically as he strode from behind a large trunk. He was dressed regally, in robes that were not unlike darker versions of the Hyūga clan's formal clothing. Long, black, greasy hair streamed behind his head, floating gently with the wind, and hooded dull green eyes viewed the leader of the Hidden Leaf Village with no ounce of pleasure. "I must admit…" he continued, "I was not expecting you for a few more days. This is quite unexpected…" Nevertheless, he walked over in a very controlled manner and shook his equal's hand.

"You and me both, Lord Mui," Minato admitted, "However, some time freed up in my schedule, and I thought it best to give interrogation one last try before resorting to alternative means."

The tall leader of Hidden Grass raised an eyebrow at this, still not completely understanding the point. "Oh? That's curious, what do you mean?"

The Hokage chose not to answer verbally and instead handed him a scroll. Mui took a moment to open and scan the document. As he did, his blank eyes briefly lit up with understanding, and he couldn't help but release a chuckle as he rewrapped the document and handed it back to the owner. "That explains a lot. I was wondering what that phone call a few days ago was all about." At the same time, they began to make their way through the woods towards the castle. The wind began to hiss briefly, and anyone less than the caliber of the two ninja present would have missed the departure of Mui's ANBU protection squad.

Naruto's father chuckled as well. "It's a little underhanded, but I think in the end both of our villages will be better off in the long run because of it."

"Agreed. And my son was long due for a good kick in the pants, hanging out with that partner of his, so I feel this will be well worth the minor amount of chaos down the road." The long-haired warden paused for a moment before changing the subject and asking another question. "Still, I'm not sure I completely understand the need for interrogation. Did you need to come all the way there just to do that yourself?"

Minato stowed the scroll away before answering. "I'm planning for the contingency," he said grimly. "If questioning and time in your care don't work, I'm taking him back to the village and giving him to Morino Ibiki to deal with. He knows information that could be useful moving forward, and I don't want to wait much longer in case that information is vital to someone."

Mui nodded, understanding his point to a degree. "I don't have anyone of his caliber in my employ. My Grass ninja are more stealthy than intelligent, loathe as I am to admit that. My most skilled interrogator is nothing more than a temptress who can use her appearance to screw with the minds of men. That's a wonderful ability, but it doesn't do much good with apathetic males, like this particular prisoner, and the rare female."

The blonde snorted. "I feel your pain, which is why I've encouraged the Torture and Interrogation Force to be proactive in recruitment. As for this particular prisoner, I've been holding off on subjecting him to Ibiki because it's still hard to believe that there is so much hatred in him." He paused before adding as an afterthought, "I would be happy to share some of my men with you as a gesture of good faith for assisting me with all of these arrangements over the past seventeen years."

Mui gave a very thin smile. "I would greatly appreciate that, and I can also appreciate your concern with getting information out of the prisoner, so let's hurry along, shall we?"

The leaders continued their walk from there on in silence, walking the extra five hundred yards to the front entrance of the prison. As with most of the rest of the complex, the door was completely bare, devoid of any sort of handle or window to even open the portal. Of course, the warden would have the key, though, and Minato stood back as Mui walked over to the massive wooden barricade and simply placed his hand on a spot, surrounded by a carved square pattern. Surprisingly, five flames lit to life where his fingertips touched the wood, and a pattern spread out across the door. Even with his extensive knowledge of seals, Minato still couldn't completely wrap his head around Mui's Fire Style prison control techniques, but he was aware of how effective they were, and he sincerely hoped that there was never a cause for anyone in his family to have to go there…especially Naruto.

The door slowly creaked open, and the two made their way into the lobby of the prison. As with the rest of the penitentiary, there wasn't much to see, and the visibility drastically dropped as the front door slammed shut behind them. A few rickety old benches that had seen better days lined the walls, and musty old paintings just hung there, the contents barely visible through a thick layer of grime. The receptionist's desk area, hidden behind a similarly disgusting pane of ancient glass, was about the only bright spot of the area, though it was hard to see. Inside, was a lovely decorated desk, with bright pictures and flowers adorning the area.

A single person sat there, and in this case the glass was only part of the obscuring of her features. Other than the fact that she was female, the only thing that Minato could tell about her was that she was a few years older than him, and even that was an educated guess. She had two bandanas that covered her face and head, and baggy clothing hid her body from view. Still, her eyes held knowledge of many years, and those orbs observed her boss and the new visitor with a curious gaze. "Lord Hokage, this is my personal assistant and the hand that truly runs this penitentiary. I don't believe the two of you have been properly introduced yet, seeing as I hired her since your last visit here. Naeko, as you have probably guessed, this is the leader of the Hidden Leaf Village, Namikaze Minato."

Despite her inability to greet him properly, the shielded secretary still stood up. "I did surmise as much," she said in a dry tone, "Still, it is a pleasure to meet such a famous and powerful individual. We don't get many people like you coming to our humble abode." Her sight shifted down to the thick, weathered ledger sitting in front of her, and she quickly found the information she was looking for. "I assume you are here to visit Prisoner X-HL-010886? I am more than happy to reserve a private visitation room for you and arrange transport of the prisoner."

"That would be wonderful," Minato replied. "However, that's not the only thing…"

Mui took over at that. "We can discuss those matters later. Those types of arrangements are somewhat convoluted and will require some extensive paperwork to complete." He paused momentarily and then gestured to his secretary. "Unless…I'm sure that Naeko wouldn't mind getting that started while we attend to your primary request."

"Oh really?" That seemed to surprise the hooded secretary. "What else are you interested in, Lord Hokage?"

"I hope this isn't too much trouble…" to which she shook her head, indicating that it shouldn't be, "…I would like to request the arrangement of transport for Prisoner X-HL-010886 from Hōzuki Castle to the care of the Hidden Leaf Village's Torture and Interrogation Force," he replied, adopting a more formal tone in an attempt to be polite.

For a moment, Naeko didn't do a thing, and the blonde Hokage wasn't even sure she understood the request. He glanced back at Mui, but he seemed unfazed by her response. This was somewhat confusing to him until some moment caught his eye, and he was shocked at what he saw when he turned back to the secretary.

Despite the coverings on her face, it was obvious that simple statement had disturbed her greatly, or at least, something that caused an adverse reaction. Her hands began to shake, and her eyes, which were the only visible part of her face, dilated severely. She pushed back away from the desk and fell into her chair as she began to draw in extremely ragged breaths. Minato turned and looked at his associate, but this odd behavior didn't seem to faze Mui. He merely watched her carefully and did nothing to help her, and Minato was forced to trust his judgment. However, a few moments later, he slowly began to understand what was happening as he watched the secretary. Slowly, her trembling slowed to a halt, and though her breathing remained jilted and harsh, her eyes slowly contracted until they appeared relatively normal.

"My apologies, Lord Mui, Lord Hokage," she said, shaking her head to clear it out. "I think I'm alright now."

Minato turned to his equal with a questioning look, demanding an explanation, and the long-haired warden nodded. "What you may not know about my secretary is that in an isolated scenario, she is quite possibly the most skilled ninja in the entire village, and I am incredibly happy to have her in my employ these past few years. I can personally attest to her resilience and aptitude in the heat of battle. However, she is crippled by a severe chakra illness that is slowly eating away at her body. It's not lethal by any means, but she has already lost most of her ability to defend herself adequately using ninjutsu, and as such can only use chakra when absolutely necessary. Her hand to hand combat remains second to none, which is why I trust her in a castle full of chakra-restricted fiends, but her ninjutsu will soon leave her, probably within the year."

"I also have seizures every now and then, like the one you just saw," Naeko added before glaring at her boss, "But really, Lord Mui, must you paint me as such an invalid?" She looked at Minato and rolled her eyes. "Honestly, he babies me so much I wonder if I'm his illegitimate daughter or something. I am perfectly capable of ninjutsu as long as I don't overdo things and burn more than I can sustain."

The blonde chuckled. "Well, I do understand the need for a good secretary, so I don't blame him, but he's right, you know. You shouldn't overdo things."

He was waved off almost immediately, and in that moment he was reminded of the fiery nature of his wife, immediately dismissive of any sort of slight to her or her clan. "Don't make me show you how capable I really am," she threatened jokingly, though he could tell she was more than a little serious.

"We'd best be on our way before Naeko decides she wants to show you exactly what she's capable of," Mui interjected, "I know you're on a tight schedule, and I don't want to agitate the prisoner by making him wait. He's enough of a basket case without extra annoyances to piss him off."

"Yes of course." Minato turned to the secretary for the last time and bowed. "Thank you so much for your help, Naeko. The Hidden Grass Village is in your debt."

"Oh stop, you flirt," she retorted, though in a pleasant tone, "Get on your way. I'll arrange the transport and get started on the paperwork."

Both village leaders nodded and began to trek into the prison, located behind the one door leading further into the prison. As the outside appearances would indicate, the inside was just as dank and dreary as one might expect from a prison. Cells lined the walls, each with a small, barred window allowing passerby and guards to see into each room. Some had occupants, but many did not. In fact, many of the cells weren't even closed. The door from the reception area led onto a walkway on the second floor of the prison, and as they walked across the building, which Minato now recognized as the castle part due to the construction of the ceiling, both men could see a couple of prisoners in the courtyard below milling around.

Once the incarcerated became aware of the presence of Mui, though, the calm quickly shattered, and various screams and curses littered the air, most of them directed at the warden and leader of Hidden Grass. He ignored them, and his counterpart knew that this must be a common occurrence for him. By his estimation, none of those men posed any significant threat, and that was before the elimination of any significant chakra use; almost all of them were no stronger than a normal child.

They arrived at the other side, where an elevator awaited them. It opened as they drew near, and the two men stepped inside the surprisingly clean car. Mui reached out and pushed the button for the second layer of the basement, and with a lurch, the car began to descend.

A few moments later, the elevator clunked to a halt at the desired floor, and the two men exited into a much different atmosphere. Here, in the subbasement, the walls were not made of chipped, aged rock but rather sleek, black rock that Minato recognized as being chakra treated. The hallway they were in extended down rather far, and a few steel doors broke the monotony of the otherwise bland corridor. Mui walked to the first of those and opened it, allowing Minato to make his way in before entering as well and shutting the heavy door behind him.

This was a visitation room, and despite the high security of the prison, it didn't look that much unlike other prisons. There was a chair for the visitor, and behind a triple-paned sheet of glass, the prisoner sat in his grey issue clothing, his head bowed down. Just out of eyeshot was a security guard, hidden by the darkness of the other hallway. Minato went and sat down in the chair, while Mui stood at the door with his arms crossed.

After a few moments, the prisoner finally realized that he was no longer alone and slowly raised his head. As was shown in the photo in Minato's file, half of his face was heavily scarred, while the other half was intact save for an obviously empty eye socket. His black hair was matted with grime from a lack of hygiene, and his clothes showed similar disregard for cleanliness. As he squinted to see who had come to talk with him, his single eye narrowed in pure hatred, and he spat, "I have nothing to say to him. Let me return to my cell."

"This isn't something that's up for discussion, Prisoner X-HL-010886," Mui growled as one of his hands twitched into the shape of a handseal, "You will speak to him, whether you like it or not. I will…_encourage_…you to show more appropriate behavior in the presence of others, you filth."

The prisoner flinched and growled with disgust as he subconsciously scratched at a number of faded scars on his chest and shoulders, just visible under the collar of his shirt. "Fine, fine, but make it fast. I don't want to be in the presence of this traitor and murderer any longer than I have to be," he muttered darkly, half turning away and crossing his arms in spite.

Minato sighed gently and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the small countertop in front of him. "It's good to see you too…Obito…"

…xXx…

Jiraiya grinned as he patted his student's son on the shoulder. "I hope you have an easy time dealing with these miscreants in the Land of Snow, my boy," he said happily, "I'm sure you'll have a good time there." His face slowly contorted into a familiar perverted smirk, and he added lewdly, "I hear the scenery on the set of the movie will be a true thrill."

Sakura looked near murderous at having to put up with the pervent's nonsense, and Kakashi merely sighed. Naruto was used to this kind of behavior, and he merely shook his head in disgust. "Fine, fine, I'll get you an autograph too, alright?" he griped. "Will that satisfy you for a couple of days?"

The Toad Sannin appeared to consider the offer before nodding with a big grin on his face. "I suppose that would be enough…" he mulled, "…though other things might be better if you know what I'm saying…"

"Aren't you going to give me any advice on the Rasengan since Dad's busy?" the blonde pushed further, trying to steer the conversation back to a more logical place. "I mean, I am almost done with it, and I thought you'd be more excited that I'm about to complete this insanely difficult ninjutsu. Instead you're just being pervy."

"So, basically normal…" Sakura muttered.

Jiraiya sighed. "Wouldn't you be disappointed if I suddenly changed overnight?" the elder man queried. When he received blank stares in response, he sighed in resignation. "Fine, fine. Sheesh, none of you have any sense of humor. Why do you need my advice anyways? Are you having trouble with it? You've been breezing through the steps so far."

Naruto shrugged. "No, I think I understand a good method for attacking the final step, but I figured you might have some witty piece of help to share before I left."

"Nah, I think you've got everything under control," the toad master replied, slapping his new student on the shoulder. "Just keep on the course you've forged for yourself, and everything should be fine. I trust in your abilities, so I'll be looking forward to seeing your brand spanking new perfect Rasengan when you get home."

The blonde huffed, though he looked happy despite his best efforts. "Well, thanks, I guess."

Kakashi intervened, checking his watch and seeing that it was time to head out. "Lord Jiraiya, if you don't mind, we should be going. It's a decently long trip, and I want to make good time before setting up camp."

The tall man nodded and shushed the genin away playfully. "Alright you scallywags, get out of here and make us proud. Don't do anything I wouldn't." Sakura rolled her eyes in disgust again, and Sasuke remained silent while Naruto waved enthusiastically before Team 7 began their dash into the forest. Almost forgetting a final note, Jiraiya shouted after them, "And don't forget my autograph!" before they were out of eyesight and earshot. He grinned and chuckled to himself before turning around to head back into the village…and was stopped by an unexpected trio of foreigners in his way. "Well, well, well, what do we have here?" he asked speculatively, "What can this old fart do for the youngsters of the Hidden Sand Village?"

Indeed, the three children of the current Kazekage stood before him in varying forms of anticipation. Temari looked rather tentative, and she kept shooting veiled glances at her youngest brother next to her, who looked mildly confused as to why he was even there. Kankurō was standing on her other side, and his expression was unreadable, though Jiraiya noted that his hood was down, and he didn't have his normal purple face paint applied on this occasion. The eldest sibling stepped forward, and it was obvious that she was the spokesperson for this motley crew. "Good afternoon, Lord Jiraiya," she said slowly, trying to piece her words together carefully, "I was wondering if you would be willing to speak to us for a couple of minutes. We have a situation that I believe you would be best at helping us resolve."

The legendary pervert looked surprised but quickly recovered, flashing a charming smile Temari's way. "I don't see why that should be an issue. I was planning on taking care of some personal business, but that can always wait. I wouldn't want to hinder the resolution of this so-called 'situation' you have." He took a quick glance around the area by the entrance to the village and spotted a small café a few yards away. "Let's go over to that coffee shop. I could use a cup of joe." With that he ushered them over, ignoring the look of annoyance on Gaara's face as the elder man led him and his brother by the shoulder.

When they arrived, he pointed to a table under the awning and said, "Why don't you three sit down there? I'll get us some drinks." He turned away and immediately struck up a conversation with the waitress, giving none of the three siblings time to give him an order of any kind.

Gaara was still looking rather confused, and he finally grew tired of waiting and asked, "Temari, Kankurō, as much as I appreciate…" though his facial expression didn't convey that at all, "…some quality time with you, I'm not sure why we're here and not training for the finals. Would you care to explain?"

The older two of the Kazekage's children looked at each other, not really knowing how to explain things all that well. "Well…" Kankurō started slowly, "…we've been a little worried about you, that's all."

The redhead raised an eyebrow, really confused now. "Why?" he asked, "There's nothing wrong with me."

"But there is!" Temari jumped in, surprising the young jinchūriki, "And there has been for nearly ten years. It's just now, as you've grown stronger and gained more and more ability to show yourself in matters both personal and professional…we can tell there are still some issues that need to be ironed out, and we don't have any other options ."

"And I'm assuming that's where I come in?" the booming voice of the Toad Sage cut in, as he sat down between Temari and Gaara with a drink tray in his hands. "Here's some hot tea…" which he set down in front of the redhead, who nodded simply in thanks, "…and a green tea lemonade…" which went to Kankurō, who looked extremely happy, "…and finally a large latte for the missus." The final cup, filled to the brim with whipped cream, went to the blonde, who had an incredulous look on her face.

"How did you know what kinds of drinks we liked?" she demanded, "We don't even live here!"

The white haired man took a sip of his own drink, a simple coffee, and gave her an amused look over the lip of the cup. "Is it a crime to talk with your father every now and then?" he asked rhetorically. "He mentioned how much you were looking forward to getting some of the food and drinks you don't have access to in the desert when I was there a few months ago." He set the cup down and inhaled deeply. "Though…" he added carefully, "…I get the feeling that this meeting of ours might be related to him. Am I right?"

The silence from the two elder siblings basically confirmed that, and Gaara wheeled on them with an angry look on his face. "Is that what this is about?" he demanded, "You want to talk about Father?"

"We're worried about you!" Temari replied, appearing very much sad. "This…tension…between the two of you…it's getting to the point of being unbearable."

"You know that regardless of whatever decisions Father has made in the past, he deeply regrets them despite the fact that he believed that he was acting in the best interest of the Hidden Sand Village," Kankurō added, slightly more level headed than his sister but still obviously tentative. "We've long since forgiven him for his misdeeds; why can't you?" Jiraiya remained silent, opting for the moment to let the younger ninja begin to work things out, though he could tell things were about to get fiery.

"Oh, you just expect me to roll over and forgive him?" Gaara snapped back irritably. "Have you forgotten what he did to me and our mother?"

"No, no, of course not," Temari said, waving her hands in an attempt to placate his anger, "But he's explained the situation to us repeatedly. You know that Mother's death was an accident."

"An accident?" Jiraiya could tell that this was getting out of control, and that was before even he noticed the granules of sand beginning to rattle on the ground. He leaned back in his seat, appearing to casually listen to the growing feud, but he discreetly slipped his hand into his pocket as he took a casual sip of his beverage. Gaara's rant began to reach a feverish pitch. "You're trying to tell me that creating a so-called 'perfect weapon' out of your youngest son is an appropriate excuse for killing your wife and the mother of your children." The youngest of the Kazekage's children was now on his feet, and not only the waitress but also a number of patrons and passerby were beginning to take notice of the ruckus. "Get real Temari. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he didn't have a single problem with it. Look at me." He about tore his shirt off as he pulled it up to reveal the seal on his gut. It was rather similar to the one that sealed the Nine-Tailed Fox inside of Naruto, but if one looked closely, they could tell that it was actually the second seal to be placed on his body; remnants of another could be seen on the edges of the current one.

Temari and Kankurō turned away, both wondering in their own way how good of an idea this, but Gaara wasn't about to let this conversation end without him getting the final word. "Don't look away," he roared, "You started this discussion, and now I'm going to finish it!" **LOOK AT THIS SEAL!**" Now patrons were really starting to get nervous as Gaara stabbed at his gut with a finger. "The only thing that I did was be born, and he does this to me and kills my mother. **HE PUT THIS FUCKING MONSTER INSIDE OF ME AND EXPECTS EVERYTHING TO BE ALRIGHT! WHY SHOULDN'T I BE ANGRY?!**" the redhead screamed at the top of his lungs. He breathed deeply for a few moments before clutching at his head in agony, and that's when Jiraiya decided to step in.

"Everyone, there's nothing to worry about," he said calmly, standing up and applying a paper seal to Gaara's head before he could even react, which seemingly stopped his pain, judging by the relaxing of his features. The sand also stopped rattling almost immediately, which ease some of the tension in the elder siblings. "I'll take care of this." He then turned to Temari and Kankurō, who still looked rather shaken up. "I know you feel like this was a terrible idea, but everything will be fine. Judging by what I've seen here, you made the right call. I'll have a talk with both him and his inner demon. Just give me a few minutes, and we should be in a much better place." He looked back at the waitress and asked, "Hey, Hiroka, is it okay if they take their drinks and go for a walk around the block?" Despite still being frightened by the recent occurrences, she nodded silently, having known Jiraiya for a few years through his frequent visits to her stop and understanding that he was usually right about these types of things. He nodded happily and gestured for them to take off for a few minutes. Both siblings looked rather unsure about this particular course of action, but at another reassuring grin, they uneasily got up and took off with their beverages.

Once they were out of eyesight, Jiriaya slowly pushed Gaara back into his chair and closed his own eyes, tapping the seal twice. Immediately, his consciousness faded from the real world and entered that of the redhead's mindscape. His body materialized in the space as he fell to the ground, which contrary to Naruto's meadow and forest imagery resembled an oasis in the middle of a desert, and he tapped down in the mental construct resembling sand. "Well, this is rather interesting…" he murmured. "I don't know what I was expecting, but an oasis wasn't quite it."

"Cut the chitchat," a voice snapped. Jiraiya turned his head and noted that Gaara was now standing a few feet away, on the shore of the oasis's small pond, with just as furious a look on his face as had been before his little explosion. "What are we doing here?"

The Toad Sage kept his face mostly impassive as he turned fully to face the rebellious teen. "I was hoping to spare my favorite café from your wrath, but mostly I thought it would be best to talk face to face…to face."

The redhead's anger melted into confusion momentarily before he realized what the elder man meant, and he hissed in annoyance. "Fine, but don't blame me when he gets angry about us being in his home." The jinchūriki closed his eyes and appeared to be concentrating, and before long, a massive rumbling filled the area. As Jiraiya watched with some amount of amusement, the sand outside of the desert parted and gave way to a massive mammal, with spines make of hardened sand and intricate patterns spread over his body. A massive spiky tail whipped slowly behind him, and his beady eyes observed the two humans currently in his domain.

"**Old man toady! Well this is an unexpected pleasure!**" he screeched loudly. In as graceful a manner as he could, he bounded over to the two and stuck out a massive paw, coiled into a fist. The Toad Sage chuckled and responded in kind, pounding his fist with the massive chakra construct.

"It's good to see you too, Shukaku, but I'm afraid I'm once again here on business," Jiraiya replied in a strict tone. "If you would, please…?" He gestured to the ground nearby, and the tailed beast waddled over and sat down with a massive slam, sending sand flying all over the place.

"**Before you ask, I already know where you're going with this, and the answer is no,**" the One-Tailed Tanuki screeched, "**I haven't gotten anywhere. In fact, he won't talk to me at all. It's like I'm speaking to a brick wall!**"

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here!" Gaara hissed angrily, "Now will someone _please_ explain why we're here and why I have to listen to all of this idiotic nonsense?"

"That's enough." Jiraiya's voice had suddenly gone cold, and his eyes were as icy as the desert night. "These temper tantrums aren't getting us anywhere. You will be quiet and listen to me, whether you like it or not. Do you understand?"

That didn't seem to do much good. "This is my mind, you senile old man!" the redhead spat, "I control what happens here, not you, and if I want you to leave, I can just as easily kick you ou…"

"Shukaku!" Jiraiya snapped, and the massive mammal sprung into action. Before Gaara could get the last word of his rant out, sand sprung up around him and restrained both his limbs and his mouth. The teen tried to fight it, but his sand powers were a derivative of the bijū, and as such he couldn't do a thing to fight it. So he settled for sending his most lethal glare at the man invading his personal space.

"I don't intend to spend my entire day putting up with your immature behavior, and I certainly don't intend to let you leave here without installing some measure of respect for your father, so let's cut the bullshit, shall we?" The powerful individual, taking a rare opportunity to show how threatening he can be when he was angry, slowly walked over until he was nearly touching noses with the petulant teen. "Now, I'm going to talk, and you're going to listen, and hopefully by the time I'm done you're going to get over your little temper tantrum and learn to respect those who care for you."

He took a deep breath and quickly spared a glance at Shukaku, who looked relatively impassive, but the white-haired man could tell he was listening carefully as well. "Let's back track to a few days before your birth. Your father had contacted me in somewhat of a panic, knowing that he wasn't all that skilled in sealing, needing assistance in finding a new host for Shukaku. At the time, the One-Tailed Tanuki was known as a bundle of natural destruction, for good reason, as no one had ever treated him like anything more than a rabid animal. Rasa feared the problems that would result from him being released into the wild, and one of his most trusted seal masters had perished in the previous war, so he had no way of storing him in the old pot that had become the temporary vessel between jinchūriki.

"I had recently been a part of the Hidden Leaf Village's repulsion of the Nine-Tailed Fox, and as such I was privy to the methods that were used to seal it into the boy you now know as Uzumaki Naruto. That particular type of sealing was a rather unique method, never before used on anyone because my student, Namikaze Minato, had just developed in the three years preceding that incident. My godson and his mother were the first two recipients, and the results were better than anyone could have asked for. So, when your father called asking for help, I was more than willing to help out, and Minato gave me permission to use his sealing matrix. I wouldn't have had the opportunity to even provide assistance if it weren't for a timely recall back to Hidden Leaf during Kurama's attack. If that hadn't happened, I probably would have been somewhere in the middle of Hidden Rain, blissfully unaware of the issues in both villages until it was too late to act to help.

"As you may know, your mother wasn't the healthiest individual. Her body had been ravaged by an aggressive form of tuberculosis for many years, and by the time she gave birth to your brother, doctors weren't sure if her body could hold up to another sequence of labor. However, she was determined to have a third child, and so, you were conceived. Careful monitoring over the first six months showed a rather encouraging prognosis for both you and Karura, but Rasa wasn't convinced that something wouldn't go wrong in the process. Shukaku's former host had already perished by that time, and he was hoping to use the pure chakra that your friend here is made of to strengthen his wife enough to get both her and you through the birth in one piece.

"The issues came into play when labor began. The main problem was that you came out prematurely, and that put a wrench in your father's hopes. I was there, having sealed Shukaku into the temporary vessel, and so was Rasa as an aide. The doctors managed to get you out with some rather ingenious methods, but both you and your mother were clinging to life. Both Rasa and I tried to argue that Shukaku's chakra would be beneficial to you both, but the doctors couldn't fully convince themselves that the risks would be minimal, and the decision came down to a question of who rather than how." Gaara's eyes, which had remained mostly impassive, widened in shock, and Jiraiya knew that he was getting somewhere finally. "Didn't know that, did you? Your father told you some cockamamie story about using his wife as a medium for sealing Shukaku into you, and she died as a result. Seemed like he didn't care at all?" The silence and stillness from his subject was all he needed.

"So, he and I tried everything we could possibly think of to stabilize both of you using Shukaku's chakra, but there wasn't much that we could do that wouldn't endanger one or both of you. We had about given up hope of saving both mother and child when Karura began to speak to us. Despite the immense pain she had to be in, she still managed to sound like the stern but kind mother she was and ordered us to prioritize saving her son because it was likely too late for her anyways. One of the doctors there confirmed that she was suffering from massive internal hemorrhaging, and there was little that they could do for her given the medical equipment available. It's something that we have attempted to fix in recent years, but due to a drop in communication from one of our best medics, I'm sure you know that the situation there is just as bad as it ever was.

"We asked repeatedly if there was anything that could be done, but the doctors couldn't give us any sort of diagnosis that was remotely positive, so we had no choice but to save you. As we were preparing the sealing matrix, Karura faded away. We managed to give her one final touch of you before she died, and then we had to begin the sealing in order to save you. Because of your own fragile situation, I wasn't able to fully implement the type of seal that Minato had imparted to me, so I was forced to make some modifications. As a result, the seal wasn't completely secure, and Shukaku's mental processes warped and interfered with yours. That's why I visited the village when you were young and fixed the runes on your gut. I wanted to give you a life that would make your mother happy. I didn't want Shukaku to go insane living inside of you, nor you insane having to deal with him inside of you. Your father was merely trying to save face when he told you those lies so many years ago, so maybe you should consider the pain he has had to live all of these years before tormenting him for one more day."

The older man took a deep breath and then craned his neck to peer at the massive badger-like creature. "Okay, you big oaf, go ahead and let him go. I think he's got the general idea of what's going on." With a cackle, the large bijū allowed the sand to crumble away from his host, and Gaara feel to his knees in disbelief.

"Is that all true?" he asked weakly.

Jiraiya was already turning to leave the mindscape, but he glanced back and gave the young man an odd look. "Ask your father if you're really skeptical," he murmured, "He may not like that I told you, but he will confirm all of what I told you." The white-haired pervert looked up at the chakra construct and added, "I'll see you around, Shukaku," before fading from sight.

Back at the café, Temari and Kankurō were just returning with their half-consumed beverages when they saw the Toad Sannin stand up and begin to walk away, tea in hand. "Lord Jiraiya, wait up!" the blonde called out as she and her brother hustled over. They both noticed that Gaara looked rather stupefied but didn't give it much mind. "Is everything alright?" the eldest child asked worriedly.

Minato's teacher gave her a big grin and gave her a small tap on the shoulder. "He'll be fine, but I suggest you accompany him when he goes to talk with your father. He will need your support to get him through this, and you may need his as well."

"Wait, what are you…" Temari tried to ask, but she was waved off.

"I've already told more tales than I should have today," he interrupted, beginning to walk away, "I'll let the Kazekage finish the gossip train, since this is something better explained from the source. I'll see you kids around later." With that, he disappeared around a corner and was gone, leaving Rasa's children to wonder exactly what they knew and what they didn't know about their lives up until that point.

…xXx…

**AN:** That's as good a place as any to stop for the time being. Please review and stay tuned! Hope you like the bombs I'm beginning to drop!

**Review Responses:**

**guedesbrawl: **Teeheehee

**Rose Tiger: **Thanks! Blame school for the issues lately! ;)

**Tempestuous Ocean**: With all due respect, I completely disagree with your opinion. There's a reason that Minato seems a little disconnected from his son's training – because he is. He doesn't want Naruto to just be gifted things, so he's forcing his son to learn on his own. As a result, he's more advanced than canon Naruto, but his style of learning is quite similar. And Kage Bunshin didn't help at all in canon with his chakra control; it still took him a long time to learn things until after the time skip. What Minato has taught Naruto here is that spamming Shadow Clones isn't the only or best way to learn, so they're more of a battle oriented tactic. Don't worry, they'll be used in training once he encounters a scenario where time is of the essence and they are more useful.

**meledie:** Thank you so much! Comments like that make writing worth it!

**Ravenstorm of Thunderclan:** First of all, cool name, that's really inventive. Like it a lot. For your first point, Asuma and Kurenai will actually be making their first appearance at some point throughout the duration of this pre-finals story arc. Itachi, however…who knows what happened to him. All I'll say about him is that his status is extremely cloudy…


	26. (Exam Interlude 6) Chapter 24

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, including in this chapter, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Minato traveled to the Land of Forests and the outskirts of the Hidden Grass Village, where the maximum-security prison known as Hōzuki Castle was located. Mui, the leader of Hidden Grass and warden of the prison, met him soon after, and together they made their way to the building, with Minato expressing his desire to arrange for prisoner transport due to a lack of worthwhile intelligence being received by Hidden Grass's interrogation experts. Mui agreed and asked his veiled secretary Naeko to take care of it, which coincided with a massive spell connected to her terminal chakra illness. She was fine, however, and the two village leaders made their way into the depths of the prison, where the mysterious prisoner was revealed as none other than a captured Uchiha Obito. Meanwhile, after bidding Team 7 farewell on their mission, Jiraiya's attention was captured by the children of the Kazekage. His suspicions were confirmed as Gaara's anger was riled with insinuations about the relationship he had with his father, and the Toad Sage was forced to take the conversation to a mental level. Shukaku aided in restraining his host long enough for Jiraiya to explain the full story, and by the time he was done and gone, the effect on Gaara was obvious.

**(Exam Interlude) Chapter 24 – The Tough Road to Forgiveness! Dual Fronts, Divided by the Past!**

Rasa reclined in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a moment, taking a break to collect his thoughts. Given that the needs of the village did not take a break just because he was out of town for the Chūnin Exams meant that he was in need of an office, and Minato was kind enough to provide him with some temporary private space on the first floor of the main building, just beyond the front desk and security. Granted, it wasn't much, with only a sparse desk at which to work and some boxes likely meant for storage down the road, but he had access to a phone and hookups for his computer, and that was all he really needed. Being from Hidden Sand meant that he had grown used to living without all of the comforts that other villages were accustomed to.

Though he certainly wasn't opposed to the cuisine and air conditioning that Hidden Leaf had to offer.

A knock on the door roused him from his musings, and he stood up to go see who it was. He had just sent one of the various chūnin around the building to obtain some documents from the roost, where one of his hawks was stationed, but he didn't think that he would be back so soon.

When the Kazekage opened the door, he was correct in thinking that it wasn't the messenger he had dispatched, but he certainly wasn't expecting to see all three of his children standing there. "What are you three doing here?" he asked in confusion. "I wasn't expecting you until later this afternoon for training."

He couldn't help but note the look of pure befuddlement on his youngest son's face, which was an emotion he honestly couldn't remember seeing on his face before, and Kankurō gave him absolutely no indication of what he was feeling despite the obvious lack of makeup on his face. Temari, as he was long used to at this point, was the only one who showed any ounce of emotion, and even she was normally guarded, but today she looked almost…was it relieved? Despite the obvious tension among the three, the cause of which he could only hazard a guess, she looked at peace in a way that he hadn't observed in a long time. In fact, she was the one that spoke up to explain the unexpected encounter. "We're really sorry to disturb you, Father, but are you free to talk?" she asked, and her tone left no question as to the severity of the impending conversation.

Rasa, despite his confusion at the whole situation, calmly extracted his phone from his pocket and scanned his calendar. Outside of waiting for the chūnin to return with his documents, his day was mostly free since he had gotten ahead on work earlier, so as he stashed his cell he shrugged noncommittally. "We might be interrupted briefly, but I don't have anything going on the rest of the day outside of our training session, which I thought was supposed to be around 5 or so…?" He left the question hanging as he awaited a response.

"That's the thing Father…" Temari paused as she searched for the correct words. "…before we start training, we need to clear some things up."

That didn't help much, and it almost seemed like they were being intentionally vague. "Such as…?"

"Well…we've just come from having a spot of tea and coffee with Lord Jiraiya…" she said slowly, and that certainly caught his attention.

"Oh really?" The Kazekage attempted to play it off cool, but his interest was most certainly piqued. "What did you discuss with him?" He eyed his youngest, whose face was beginning to morph into a mix of uncomfortable and…was that hope?

The blonde kunoichi stalled at that moment, and it was obvious that she hadn't thought that far ahead into the conversation, so it became Kankurō's job to take over. As per usual, he didn't mince words as he said bluntly, "We forced him to tell Gaara about what happened the day he was born."

Having suspected as much from the moment they had mentioned the Toad Sage's name, it was nevertheless still quite the shock. However, that wording caused him to chuckle despite the seriousness of the situation. "Forced?" he asked lightly, "Even as the proud father that I am, I'm not sure three genin could ever force a legendary jōnin such as Lord Jiraiya into anything he didn't want to do."

The puppet master colored slightly. "Well…okay, we didn't _force_ him…per se…but he kinda figured out why we were there before we could ask, and he didn't object to helping…"

The Magnet Style user conceded his son's point and looked towards his youngest, the pensive redhead standing between his older two siblings. While attempting to lock gazes with him, he directed another question at Kankurō and Temari. "I assume Lord Jiraiya told you everything? Even my little cover up tale?" They both nodded, and he sighed. "You had best come inside. I'd rather the entirety of the Hidden Leaf Village didn't hear this. Jiraiya and Minato knowing is more than enough." He stood aside and allowed the three teens to shuffle into his temporary office before shutting the door behind him and activating the wards that the Fourth Hokage had established just for him. Silently, he walked over to his desk and sat down slowly, taking a deep breath as he steeled himself for the difficult conversation ahead. His children had scattered across the admittedly scarce furniture, with Temari and Kankurō taking up shop on the threadbare couch and Gaara opting to sit in the other chair, not having to do anything with his gourd because he wasn't carrying it around on this particular day.

Rasa took a deep breath and began what might be the most complicate and difficult conversation of his life. "I can't ever attempt to make up for the loss of your mother," he started to say with only the slightest hitch in his voice, "Not a single day goes by that I don't think about what I could have done differently, but I have slowly come to realize that psychoanalyzing my actions in the past isn't something that that does me or you three any good. Lord Jiraiya managed to knock some sense into me, as it seems he did with you three as well, when he came to permanently fix Gaara's seal a few years after the initial sealing, and I have tried to take that to heart. Still, I also realize the events surrounding your mother's death makes that hard to forgive me. Despite what Lord Jiraiya may have told you, all of which is one hundred percent true, it will do you a world of good to hear the words from my mouth, and there will be some information that he didn't tell you because he didn't have a reason to know about it." The Sand leader, pausing to take another heavy breath, saw Temari giving Gaara nervous looks, and sought to resolve that. Looking right at his youngest, he asked solemnly, "Son, are you okay with being here? I know our relationship hasn't been the best but…"

The redhead shocked everyone by interrupting the Kazekage midsentence. "I want to be here Father," he said quietly, with a quiver in his tone that no one had heard in a long time. "I want to hear your side of the story, and I want to make a change, but I cannot unless I hear the events surrounding my birth from you." Kankurō's face cracked into a very small grin, and Temari actually looked like her eyes were beginning to tear up.

Rasa nodded, a sad smile adorning his own features. "Alright then, let's get started…"

_**Later in the evening, somewhere in the northern part of the Land of Fire, in the vicinity of the Fire Temple**_

"Remind me again whose smart idea it was to take the off-road path to the Fire Temple?" Ino grumbled irritably, pausing her trek through the woods to swat at a branch that refused to get out of her way. "Last time I checked, our half of the mission wasn't the troublesome part."

Chōji snorted. "Alright, 'Shikamaru,' calm down. Sensei just wants to be careful, in case whoever is threatening Lady Haruna and Lady Toki anticipated what we were doing." The real Nara didn't say a thing but forged on ahead, ignoring the inevitable outburst from Ino and keeping close to Keisei, who seemed to be on a mission to arrive in record time. The cold autumn wind whipped at their faces, barely deadened by the thick forest cover, and each of the members of the squad were glad that they remembered to bring scarves and light gloves in addition to their somewhat thicker mission gear.

Shikamaru was concerned, which is why he chose not to engage Chōji and Ino in conversation. Normally, he'd focus on thinking through mission parameters and possible deviations to their assignment, but it was rather difficult given the odd behavior of the squad leader, so he decided to pursue a more affirmative approach. "Is there something bothering you, sensei?" the intelligent genin asked bluntly, causing the team leader to hitch his step and turn around with an unreadable look on his face. Behind him, he could sense the cessation of movement and conversation from Chōji and Ino as well. "We've been beating through the brush like we're in the middle of some swamp war, but I can't tell that there should be anything to worry about," he continued persistently, forcing Keisei to fully halt. "Our intelligence doesn't point to guerrillas attempting to intercept us; Team 8 should be on the receiving end of most of those types of individuals." Shikamaru paused for a moment to collect his thoughts and then continued the near-interrogation. "Also, speaking of Team 8, why were the teams assigned the way they were? No offense to Ino as a sensor-type ninja, but Team 8 is much better equipped to this type of mission, and we are by far the better team when it comes to combat. Wouldn't it have made more sense to switch the two teams around?"

The younger Sarutobi brother remained silent for a few moments, and Shikamaru wondered if he had overstepped his boundaries. Ino certainly looked somewhat freaked out by the sudden insubordination, but Chōji remained pensive, choosing to extract a bag of mini carrots from within his armor to munch on. The Nara, feeling the rare need explain himself, added on to his original query, "I'm also curious about why you looked so freaked out by the Hokage assigning us this mission. When he said that we would be the team to aid Lady Haruna and the Fire Temple, you looked like you had seen a ghost. What's at the Fire Temple that's got you so disturbed?"

Keisei remained silent, but he slowly turned around to look at his squad. All three were shocked at the look of annoyance on his face, but they also could somehow tell that it really wasn't aimed at them due to the way he quickly shook his head and cleared his expression. "I'd like to tell you that it's nothing, and to not worry about it, but you'll find out once we get to the Fire Temple, so I can't really use that excuse."

The team waited for him to provide more of an explanation, but he didn't offer any and proceeded on his way, turning his back once more and picking up his pace. "That's it?" the Nara youth asked dubiously, not buying that one bit. "You're not going to give us any sort of clue whatsoever?"

"Like I said, you're going to find out once we get to the Fire Temple, so I'd rather just show you in person," the younger Sarutobi brother's voice called out as he disappeared into the foliage. Knowing that their destination wasn't too far away, the other three genin also quickened their step.

Shikamaru remained silent and pensive, fixing his gaze on the back of his sensei's head as they darted through the brush, but Ino and Chōji were not so quiet. "What was that all about?" the blonde sensor hissed to her friend and teammate. "What's with those two? I didn't notice anything weird back in the Hokage's office? Why's Shikamaru jumping down his throat like that?"

The bulky Akimichi shrugged, just in the dark but not nearly as interested. "I'm sure it's nothing. I noticed that sensei seemed a little on edge back in the village, but I didn't think much of it past possibly Konohamaru acting up. Maybe he had a bad experience there in the past?"

Ino shot him a look of incredulity. "A bad experience?" she repeated slowly, "What kind of bad experience can you have with a bunch of ninja monks that are allied with our village? They're _monks_, for heaven's sake!"

"I don't know," Chōji replied calmly, used to his friend's overreactions by now, "Maybe it wasn't the monks, but I do know it likely isn't any of our business." The Yamanaka youth looked like she wanted to vehemently protest, but he shut that down rather quickly. "Don't go there, you know I'm right. Just let him have his secrets, just like you have yours and I have mine." He chuckled. "You never know, maybe you'll find out what the secret is while we're here."

"Fine, fine…" she muttered, looking like a pouty baby but really just sour at Chōji being correct. "Whatever, it's probably not that great of a secret anyways, if it involves our goofy teacher and a bunch of bald, chaste dudes wearing robes." The large, armored genin laughed louder at that and clapped a large paw on her shoulder for a moment before speeding up to catch the rapidly disappearing Shikamaru and Keisei. "Hey, wait up!" she whined, not wanting to be left behind. "And what's that about you noticing something that even I didn't notice? Since when did you turn into some sort of super sleuth…?"

…xXx…

"…and fuck everything you stand for, you lying, murdering sack of shit!" Obito spat, straining against his restrains even as the angry red tattoos splayed across his chest sapped him of the little energy he still had. The guards hidden in the darkness weren't moving, so there obviously wasn't any fear of him escaping, but the display was startling nevertheless. "I never want to see you again! I'm never going to forgive you for assigning that mission to Kakashi and leaving me behind on that battlefield to die like a old dog, do you hear me? You're a contradiction of everything you supposedly stand for, you bastard! I want you to leave this place and leave me to rot here like you've wanted ever since that battle in Hidden Grass! FUCK YOU!"

Minato had stood back up at that point and had his back facing the former Leaf ninja, but those most recent accusations were new, at least for the current tirade that Obito was on, and that caused him to turn back around and look at his former student with a look of pity. "Is that what you think?" he asked blandly. "Is that what you really think?" His voice lowered to a chilling whisper, and he slowly began to stalk back towards the captive. "That I cared so little about someone that I viewed as a younger brother and valued teammate that I would leave the battlefield without doing everything possible to prove that there was nothing further that I could do to save you? That I sent Kakashi on that mission to the Hidden Mist, knowing that Rin would be forced to be a human weapon and knowing that he had to kill her in order to get back in one piece? That I believed that she was so far gone that I forced Kakashi to kill her in cold blood, that I believed there was no other way to save her? Is that what you think?" He was only inches from the window, nearly nose to nose with his former student, and his eyes were wracked with guilt and pain. "I cannot understand what you've been forced to endure, but that doesn't give you the right to assume things that you have no basis to believe. You know nothing of what it takes to assume a position of leadership, to make the decisions that no one should ever be forced to make."

"Oh really?" That was enough to get the rogue Uchiha started up again. "Is that what you've fooled yourself into believing? You really don't know a single thing about me, _sensei_. Just where do you think I was before you got lucky on the day your spawn was born? Stuck under that rock in the middle of Hidden Grass?" He took a breath and appeared to want to bait the blonde into retorting, but he wasn't falling for it. "I stand for something so much more than any of the lowly hidden villages, and once I get out of this hellhole, I'll show the world the true meaning of pain."

Minato also took a breath, and his face visibly relaxed, back into the calm collected visage of an all powerful village leader. "Well that's a start. Why don't we talk about where you were all those years that caused you to not want to be found by anyone, including those who cared about you? I'm all yours, just talk."

Obito wasn't about to let that barb get to him, and he simply snorted in disgust. "Nice try, oh sainted leader of the sacred Hidden Leaf Village, but that's not going to work. There's not an interrogation technique out there, not a torture method nor poison created that will even begin to scratch the surface of my subconscious."

"That sounds like a dare, Lord Hokage," Mui added dryly, speaking up for the first time throughout the entire ordeal, "Why don't you take him up on it?"

The blonde nodded grimly and shot his former student a look of regret. "If that's the way you're going to be, Obito, I have no choice." Minato turned back to the Hidden Grass leader and murmured, "Tell your secretary everything is a full go, and that we'll begin the transfer procedures within the next day or so." The shadowed eyes of Mui narrowed in delight, and he slipped back into the shadows of the hallway.

The leader of the Hidden Leaf Village turned to his student one last time to address the confusion plastered over the prisoner's face. "Since the best interrogation experts of Hidden Grass don't seem to be having much of an effect, I've made the decision to transfer you to the care of Morino Ibiki for the next few months. Maybe he and Yamanaka Inoichi will have better luck prying the secrets from within your mind and soul." He paused momentarily before walking away from the dim light of the visitor's desk. "Goodbye, Obito…I'll be back soon" he murmured before disappearing into the darkness, trying his best to ignore the explosion of death threats that emanated from the cell.

…xXx…

Being the fastest team (and admittedly most focused and therefore less prone to pit stops) of the current batch of rookie genin, Shisui's Team 8 was making excellent time, and their current position put them on the border of the Land of Fire, with an expected arrival time in the Land of Birds a little after nightfall.

The Uchiha cousin was quietly surprised by the efficiency of his team's travel, even more on this occasion than he usually was. He was well aware of the…tension…clouding the mind of Hyūga Hinata, but the other two were rather quiet as well, and he couldn't help but wonder if her anxieties were beginning to wear on the emotions of Kiba and Shino as well.

He checked his watch and saw that it was almost 5 o'clock, and he knew that no one on his squad was opposed to stopping for an early dinner, so he held up his hand to indicate that he was stopping and halted on a thick tree branch overlooking a small clearing with a stream nearby. A moment later, he heard the rustle of fall leaves as his three genin handed nearby. "What's wrong, sensei?" Kiba asked curiously.

"We're a little ahead of schedule, so I thought it might be nice to stop for a few minutes and eat dinner," he explained before gesturing to the spot below. "It might be nice to have a fresh cooked meal instead of burning through our rations right away."

Both of the male genin in Team 8 looked enthused about this, having plenty of experience with wild foraging due to the influences of their clan, but Shisui could see the objection forming on Hinata's face; he had run this drill with her on missions before. This time, though, he was counting on the expected reaction. "That sounds great!" the dog trainer said gleefully, "I can't remember the last time I had fish! Hey, Shino, you feel up for some fishing?"

The bug breeder gave a mostly noncommittal shrug. "That might be interesting. Shall we?" Without waiting for an answer, he dropped down to the ground and proceeded to take off his backpack and gear.

"Wait for me!" the excitable Inuzuka exclaimed, quickly leaping down and doing the same, actually out speeding his friend to taking his shoes off and securing his pant legs up higher.

Shisui smiled at the enthusiasm of the two before he turned to look at the female Hyūga. "Shall we join them?" he asked. She looked slightly startled but eventually gave him a small nod and followed his descent to the ground.

Kiba was already in full fisherman mode, barking orders to his friend and companion. "Akamaru, start sniffing around that river and find some good fish," he said smartly, "Shino, if you could find some nice worms, I'll find some branches and whittle them down." The wild teen began to look around at the trees surrounding him, nodding at a couple of potential options and ignoring the glares sent his way by Shino for being relegated to bug duty. "Hinata, I know you aren't the biggest fan of the great outdoors, so why don't you…"

"She and I can go hunt up some firewood to cook the fish over," Shisui interrupted, placing his hand on his young charge's shoulder. She was slightly startled by the abrupt change of plans, but she also wasn't opposed to avoiding fish duty. "We'll go back into the woods and find some drier wood; this stuff around here is still wet from the rain we've had the past couple of days. If you find some good fish while we're gone, go ahead and start cleaning them, okay?" With that, he quickly steered the young Hyūga towards the forest, and it wasn't long until both of them were no longer visible.

Both Shino and Kiba looked nonplussed at the odd request, and the brash Inuzuka voiced his concerns. "What the heck was that all about?" he spluttered.

"I think Shisui-sensei wanted to talk with Hinata alone, Kiba," the quiet Aburame replied, "Why do I think that? She's been in somewhat of a funk with this whole Naruto thing hanging over her head."

His teammate slapped his head in disgust. "They're a bunch of lovesick puppies, but neither of them is willing to do a single thing about it. It's almost comical how oblivious both of them are." He began to snap a few of the thinner, long branches from a nearby tree to inspect them for use, and his face turned contemplative as he did just that. "I'm tempted to force their hand after the exams are over, but I'm almost more afraid of her reaction to us interfering than what Naruto would do to us."

Shino was already done with his task, holding a small glass jar in his hand filled with a number of worms, and he walked over to his friend so he could load them up onto the sticks. "I can understand her stress, though. Have you forgotten about the Hyūga clan's coming of age ceremony?"

Kiba snorted. "It's hard to forget when the whole village practically shuts down for it." His face turned contemplative as he considered his friend's statement. "You don't really think that's what the real problem is, do you? That's still a few months away, isn't it? Even for her, that's pretty far out." His voice indicated that he was somewhat skeptical of that train of thought.

"It's hard to imagine that her fear of approaching Naruto and the ceremony aren't somewhat related," he replied, handing the impromptu fishing poles back to the dog handler. "And you know Hinata. She's going to worry about things that are important to her clan extremely far in advance, whether she really needs to or not."

"Still, it's not like she needs to be betrothed to the guy she takes to the ceremony. I just don't get what the fuss is about," he groused. "Take my clan's traditions. Our coming of age party is basically a glorified family reunion and dinner." He then grinned ruefully as he remembered what happened at his sister's ceremony. "Of course, the only one I remember is when my sister's boyfriend insulted my mother and started a massive food fight…man that was fun. I miss that guy."

Shino appeared to not react at all to that story of times past and instead chose to continue his search for viable dinner targets. Meanwhile, Kiba was content to stab blindly into the water and recall more memories of failed Inuzuka clan parties. "Hey, Akamaru, remember the time that Kuromaru was trying to eat his steak, and Mom wasn't paying attention to where she was walking and tripped over him, spilling all of our steaks on the ground? Man, that might have been the best day of that dog's life…"

…xXx…

"Hey, Hinata, grab some of those berries off that bush over there. They look pretty tasty," Shisui said, pointing to a large shrub by the stream. The Hyūga princess silently complied with the request and ran over to pick the fruit from the branches, collecting the small morsels in a bag that she extracted from her hip pouch.

The Uchiha cousin chose to sit down on the remnants of a large stump, dropping his armful of fresh firewood on the ground beside him. As his student continued to comb the underbrush for other potential snack items, he watched her, trying to spot any sort of nervousness or tentativeness in her movements. Away from her teasing and silent teammates, she definitely seemed more relaxed, but his eyes, both real and borrowed, could tell that she was still on edge about something, and he was hoping to clear some of that pain and anxiety from her with a quick conversation.

At that moment, she came over and sat down next to him, holding a pouch full of various fruits and herbs. "Do you think this will do fine?" she asked, setting the container on the ground. "I found a few rare herbs and spices over by those bushes that might be good for the fish once Kiba and Shino get them cleaned and on the fire."

"They'll be fine," he assured her, rustling her hair and inciting the expected fussy reaction that was a rare occurrence from her. "In the meantime, let's give the boys some time to find our meal and talk about something."

He could feel her tense up next to him, but to her credit, she didn't retreat into herself like he thought she might. "What would you like to talk about, sensei?" she asked guardedly.

The older Uchiha smirked to himself. "Actually, I'd like to tell you a story, if you don't mind. It's one that I know none of you have heard because I haven't told this one to anyone, even to my cousin, and I hold it dear to my heart because of who it involves, but I think that there are some lessons that can be gleamed from it, and I want you to know a little more about some of your relatives."

That shocked her. "What do you mean?" she asked. "I'm sure I at least am on speaking terms with everyone in my family…right?" The young heiress began to run through a mental checklist of her family, but the messy-haired jōnin quickly stopped her, chuckling at her behavior.

"You actually act a lot like her, now that I think about it," he said softly, beginning to reminisce about times past.

Hinata quickly stopped her inner scan, looking confused. "Act a lot like who, sensei?" she asked curiously.

"Why, my old fiancée…Hyūga Misao." He had to refrain from snorting at the unfamiliar look of disbelief that blossomed on his student's face. "Now, now, don't give me that look. I was once quite the ladies' man…and still am, mind you. It's just been hard these past couple of years."

The long haired beauty shook her head to clear her surprise, sending her violet locks flying all over the place. "No, no, that's not it. It's just that I've never heard of a Hyūga named Misao. Who was she?"

"Part of the confusion might be that she was a branch family member, though that didn't diminish my feelings for her one bit," he began to explain. "Let's see if I can remember this right…it's been awhile since I was quizzed on Hyūga family hierarchy and geneology, but I think she was a distant niece of your father's father." He thought for a moment before something obvious hit him. "You might remember a Hyūga with blond hair who was somewhat of an outcast for preferring weapons to the classical Gentle Fist that most are taught?"

At that moment, a memory floated to the forefront of the genin's mind of a older ninja consoling her many years prior and offering her younger self a freshly baked cinnamon roll, and her eyes widened in recognition. "I do remember her!" she blurted out, "She used to give me sweets whenever my training sessions with Father went badly!"

"Ah, yes," Shisui said, remembering a similar situation, "She was quite the cook too. Always could whip up just the right thing without asking what anyone wanted."

Hinata still looked somewhat confused. "Wait, so you were engaged to her? Grandfather allowed that? He never turns down an opportunity to tell us how inferior the Uchiha were to the Hyūga…" She then flushed fully as she realized her impropriety and quickly stammered. "Oh, I'm sorry, sensei, I didn't mean it like that…"

Instead of being upset, he burst out laughing. "No, no, you're fine," he said in between guffaws. "I swear, I heard his spiel about the royalty of the Hyūga trumping the barbaric nature of the Uchiha at least twenty times before I managed to convince him that I wasn't about to start some sort of Hidden Leaf civil war. He made me jump through all kinds of hoops to prove that I wasn't some hoodlum trying to steal away one of his granddaughters…but I managed to do it."

Hinata was fully entranced with the tale at this point. "That's amazing…" she murmured, "I've never heard of anyone who could get Grandfather to back down from his views."

"You probably also haven't encountered someone stubborn enough to fight for what he wants and believes is right," the Uchiha leader chided her gently. "Though I feel that you may have someone in mind that could do just that if the situation was right…which is the real reason why I wanted to talk with you." Almost immediately, and just as he had guessed before the start of this little conversation, he could see her expression freeze up, her body stiffen, and her eyes divert down to the ground.

"What would that be, sensei?" she asked emotionlessly, trying (and failing) to act like there was nothing wrong.

The jōnin slung an arm around his student. "You and Naruto, obviously. I'm pretty sure the two of you are about to drive Ino, Kiba, and Neji to drink with the way you're dancing around each other." The look on the young Hyūga's face immediately shifted to object, but Shisui shut that down by lightly tapping her mouth with his slung arm. "No, no, hold on, I'm on a roll here. Just listen; I think you have a perfect opportunity in front of you to prove something to him, yourself, and possibly the most important, to your clan through your father. You just need to buck up and have some confidence in yourself." He removed his finger from her lips, and predictably the excuses spewed forth.

"What does my father have to do with this?" she insisted. "He doesn't care who I date unless it goes against the sanctity of the clan and what it stands for! And if Naruto wants to date other people, that's his own business! I don't want to get in his way-"

"My point exactly," Shisui said, cutting her off smoothly, "You're not being assertive enough. You have to grab the bull by the horns, take the initiative, and don't be afraid of rejection. What's the worst he can say? You know how he is, he isn't going to say something off the cusp unless he feels it necessary."

Her response was immediate, and her expression conveyed that worse was not quite a severe enough term for what her emotions would be. "I guess…no…"

"Exactly. And while I can assure you he wouldn't outright deny you…" noting that she perked up, having heard that same thing from two people now, "…you have to be confident enough to be able to take that type of rejection if it comes your way. You are still planning on succeeding your father as clan leader, are you not?"

"Of course!" she blurted almost instantly, showing a little pride, "I made a vow to both my cousin and my uncle that I would find a way to get past the stigma and the shortsightedness of my grandfather and some of the more traditional elders. I cannot free the branch family and reunite the Hyūga under one home unless I rise to the position of clan leader."

The Uchiha cousin nodded supportively, providing her with more ammunition. "And I want nothing more than to stand by you as the head of the Uchiha clan upon its revival as a fellow clan leader. But I know you feel the same as I do, that your confidence could use some work. You're going to need that sort of bravado if you wish to make an impact on your clan, and the only way you'll get it is through some experience." He took a moment to poke at the various fruits to see what they had to eat while his student pondered. "I've made many strides with you since you became my student, but there's always room for improvement, and you know these things don't come overnight."

"What are you trying to say, sensei?" Hinata said flatly, growing somewhat annoyed with his roundabout way of speaking.

"Get Naruto alone and talk. You don't have to go heart to heart, but at least push your limits." A rustling in the bushes alerted him to the return of Kiba and Shino, and he clapped the indigo haired girl on the shoulder once more as he stood up. "Just think about what I said, and what I was able to have because I wasn't afraid to fight for what I wanted." He walked away, and Hinata faintly heard him begin to chat with the boys about where to set up their impromptu stove. Her thoughts began to race with all the possibilities, and more importantly, she began to seriously consider what she might be missing out on.

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned!

**Ravenstorm of Thunderclan:** No problem! Glad you are enjoying it!

**jcampbellohten**: As you can tell, my form of editing is somewhat on a rolling basis haha. I will get that fixed up as soon as possible, and it should be good by the time you see this.

Thanks for the review! I am going to refrain from answering your questions for the time being. For the Rasengan question, I'm going to answer it by turning the question back on you – even if time wasn't the issue, he still has more than 17 years that he didn't have originally, with Jiraiya around to help and his son to…ah, inspire his creative juices. How do you think that would affect things? I never specifically said how long he knew how to elementize his Rasengan either; it could have been the day before the story began. ;)

The point of divergence…hmm, when is it indeed? That's a good question, and I believe the most recent chapter (not this one, the previous one) might begin to unlock that mystery a little bit.

Chapter 1 Updated

Chapter 5 Updated (I disagree with Ryūka, it's only ever shown in canon with a line as an anchor to focus the power, but Anko uses it as a widespread wave in a filler episode, which is the version I'm opting for here. It's weaker but covers more area) (Haku can deal damage from the ice gloves. I'm interpreting the chakra cloak as more of an armor; impervious to normal damage but enhanced weaponry can damage it, as well as the user underneath)

Chapter 6-8 (I'm using that canon tidbit of information as the basis for this, good catch) (I know about the descriptions, but I'm very sensitive to being called out on repeating words in close proximity due to countless assignments in elementary school haha) (I like the tech, but I'm trying not to overdo it too much. I'm trying to limit things to communication, and even then, minor communication at that. In fact, most of the references have been checking time haha)

Chapter 8-10 Updated (Completely agree with you, so I rewrote parts of 8 and 9 to adapt that into the story. Like I said, a constant work in progress! I noticed that I decided right at the end of the fight to write it the way I had intended but never went back and changed things. Oops) (I think you probably figured out what happened with reference to the stalking part, but Naruto's team was the first to the tower, and the Grass squad his clones attacked was actually Orochimaru)

Chapter 11 Updated (I fixed the multiple large chakra issue, it should be clearer now, but the one stalking Gaara's team is Orochimaru, the one following Team 10 is still just Fū)

Chapter 12-13 Updated (Not quite with the Hinata as bait thing. Naruto showing up was pure dumb luck/deux ex machina)

Chapter 14-18 (Thanks for the comments on originality, I told you it would come. Just have to get through the initial BS first haha. And ding ding, you're the first to note the similarities in Fū and Gaara haha. Also, yes, 'apparently')

Chapter 19 Updated (You've got some correct stuff in there and some incorrect stuff as well. We'll just have to see which is which!)

Chapter 20 (I think the thought process there is that Naruto now knows everything that's necessary. He's much sharper (relatively) in this story, so he might be able to use other parts to help him with the part he is currently working on)

Chapter 21 Updated

Flashback 2 Updated (Look at you! Finally someone sees through the ruse, though what will you do with that information? Hmm? It was all original from me. Had to do a lot of birth date checking to make sure it worked all right)

Chapter 23 Updated (I may just be screwing with everyone with Itachi. Who knows what his status is? All I gotta say about that is wait until the missions after the exams…)

**Appletank**: Thank you so much! Words like that make my day, though it seems like you cut off your review before you had completed it!

**dai sennin kurosaki d naruto: **Fixed, thx. I disagree with your opinions on the Haku battle, and I've already stated my reasons why. It is the Yuki clan, I knew that going in, but it sounds dumb, so I opted for something better. And Kushina had Kurama before having access, so it leaving and coming back would not give her jinchūriki characteristics in my mind.


	27. (Exam Interlude 7) Chapter 25

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, including in this chapter, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Rasa was disturbed from his musings and work by the arrival of his children to his temporary office. They asked him for a moment of his time, which he was fine with, but he wasn't expecting to talk about the circumstances surrounding his youngest child's birth. Still, he steeled himself and prepared to divulge the truth. Elsewhere, Team 10 made their way towards the Fire Temple, with Shikamaru calling out his teacher for his odd behavior and apparent reluctance to take this particular mission. Keisei deflected all the remarks with the promise that all would be made clear once they reached the holy grounds. In Hidden Grass, Obito's rage at his old teacher caused some questions to form in Minato's mind, but the Uchiha's refusal to give any answers forced the Hokage's hand in rerouting the prisoner to the Hidden Leaf Village. Finally, Team 8 took pause on their travels, about halfway to their destination, and while the boys went fishing, Hinata and Shisui had a heart to heart about her Naruto problem, with the flash step master revealing his former engagement to a Hyūga branch member. He managed to get her thinking with the assurance that this would aid in her ascension to clan leader before they began on dinner.

**(Exam Interlude) Chapter 25 – Regret and Deception Abound! The Battle of Honesty and Decryption**

_**A few hours later, at the Fire Temple, around midnight**_

"Finally!" Ino sighed, brushing her arms of all of the various bugs, bramble, and general rubbish that she picked up on way to the monks' abode. "I thought we'd never get out of that damn forest." She sent an ugly look at the Sarutobi team leader and added under her breath, "There's no way in hell that we're going back that way…next time someone else chooses the route."

"I heard that," Keisei said lightly, causing her to roll her eyes; it was obvious that was her intent from the start. "And don't worry, we'll take the road on the way back. I just wanted to be sure that we wouldn't run into any unwanted company that might slow us down." He and the other two men quickly swept their bodies for forest junk and rogue insect travelers before Team 10 began their approach to the massive monastery. Even in the dark, the large set of stairs and set of large iron gates that protected the temple were spectacular in the dim lantern light, and even the non-sensory guided ninja could feel the chakra emanating from the barricade. The glow of the flames also cast some thin shadows on the building behind, and the sheer size of the complex surprised the three genin, though Keisei was not fazed in the least.

As they approached the gates, two figures entered into the thin light of the lanterns. Even the genin were able to see that both were monks, evidenced by their shiny bald heads and simple robes. Still, their style of dress did not completely hide the surprisingly chiseled bodies underneath, and every member of Team 10 was well aware of the fact that even just one of the monks could disable them without a second thought if he had a good reason to proceed in that manner.

"Master Keisei, it has truly been a long time," the shorter of the two intoned softly as they approached. "How have you been?" This was the older of the two monks, though his wrinkles, greying facial hair, and slight stooping didn't diminish the spiritual power he radiated.

"It is good to see you, too, Bansai, Sentoki," the Sarutobi clan leader replied respectfully, bowing to both in turn. The younger and taller monk merely drooped his head in greeting, and the genin could see the ragged scar that cut from his forehead to his nape. "Are Lady Haruna and her traveling party doing well?"

The grandfatherly monk hummed lightly. "Yes, they are doing fine, outside of their slight fears that they may be targeted next. We've done our best to assuage them of that fear, but Lady Toki's disappearance has them rightfully in a state of paranoia." The bluntness of the elder was not unfamiliar to Keisei, and he was able to understand that the Vegetables contingency was most definitely on edge.

"Completely understandable. I think all of us would appreciate the chance to freshen up and have a bite to eat," the young jōnin replied, the growling of his stomach giving away his hunger. "Would that be alright? We'll sit down with Lady Haruna afterwards and talk through the plan the Hokage has laid out."

Sentoki nodded this time. "That shouldn't be too much trouble. We can put you up in the second visitor's suite, if that's alright with you. The Land of Vegetables party is staying in one, but she was only accompanied by two men from the Flower Ninja clan, so the larger one is free if your female student wishes to stay in a room by herself."

Ino looked like she wanted to cry for joy, but Keisei put a quick stop to that. "We'll take the suite, but we will have two on patrol at any given time after we settle in. We want to be sure that she is in no danger until the other Hidden Leaf team arrives with Lady Toki."

"Understood," Bansai said softly, and Sentoki nodded as well. "We'll take you to your quarters and have a spread of food sent up as soon as we can." The Akimichi heir began to salivate at the thought of a veritable all you can eat buffet, until his female associate sent an elbow into his gut. That, of course, hurt her more than it did him, eliciting a hiss of pain from her and a light exhale from the larger genin.

Keisei, ignoring or oblivious to his students, bowed in respect, and the genin did as well once Chōji and Ino stopped acting childish and saw Shikamaru dip in a similar fashion. "We appreciate your hospitality and your willingness to assist us in this matter. I am sure that any issues will be resolved in a timely manner, with minimal bloodshed and anxiety from all parties," the Sarutobi team leader said simply. "For now, I think we'll retire for our evening meal, and we'll start our shifts soon after with myself and Shikamaru here." He clapped his intelligent underling on the shoulder, and the teenager couldn't help but think that this was an intentional move.

The younger Sentoki moved to a side portal by the gates and opened a door that wasn't immediately visible. He allowed the elder to shuffle past him before gesturing for the Leaf team to follow him inside. Once everyone had entered the main complex, the portal slammed shut, and the outline disappeared into the wall once more. The actual temple was what one would expect of a monastery - grand, yet simple in design; sacred, but also spacious for worship and living. Still, it had a homely feeling, and the Leaf team couldn't help but feel safe within the walls of the ancient enclave.

The tall burly monk led Team 10 off to a side wing of the building, where the lights of one set of rooms blazed brightly and the other grouping lay dormant. Sentoki opened a door to the hallway where the suites were, and the Leaf ninja filed in, waiting for their host to take them to the proper rooms. Once he slipped in, he opened the first door on the right with a key that he withdrew from his robes. "Here is your suite, Master Keisei," he intoned, "Lady Haruna and her associates are next door, and I have confirmation that it is alright for you to enter and introduce yourself, as long as it is brief and soon after you finish eating." The spry jōnin tilted his head as the Ino-Shika-Chō trio made themselves comfortable on the surprisingly nice couch and chairs, ditching their bags on the floor. The tall monk slipped back into the hallway, and as he closed the door he added, "Food will be here shortly."

…xXx…

"So what was so important that you felt the need to have me be on the first shift with you?" Shikamaru queried as teacher and student exited their suite and made to walk to Haruna's for a quick introduction. "Does it have to do with you messing with your phone the entire time instead of eating?" The squad had made short work of the surprisingly delicious meal (mostly thanks to Chōji's ever voracious appetite), though the team leader was mostly distracted by a series of text messages that he seemed anxious over. Once the Akimichi and Yamanaka heirs had settled on which beds they wanted to sleep in, the two on the first shift quietly went into the hallway, and Nara immediately began his impromptu interrogation.

Keisei shook his head in amused disbelief. "Sometimes I get annoyed with how intuitive you are," he muttered. "Yes, there's something I need to do while I'm here, and of the three of you, I feel that you would benefit the most from being a part of this." He paused for a moment and grinned ruefully. "That, and even if I tried to hide this visit, I know you would figure it out before I got two steps out of the room."

The lazy youth raised an eyebrow and scratched his head. "Well, I haven't figured it out yet, whatever 'it' is, so you've got my mind racing."

Arriving at the adjacent door, Keisei rapped a number of times and waited for a response. "Don't worry too much about it. We need to deal with this first," he said. "No need to be in a hurry, right?"

"I guess…" Shikamaru didn't sound convinced, but the intuitive young man was also well aware of their primary objective, and he didn't wish to further hassle his teacher. Not that he had a chance because the door opened at that very moment, revealing a rather plain, if not muscular, gentlemen with a stern look on his face. However, when he saw the insignias on Keisei's head and Shikamaru's arm, his expression softened slightly.

"It's good to see you here, Leaf ninja," his surprisingly soft voice spoke out. "I was hoping assistance wouldn't be required in this venture, but Hidden Grass has forced our hand in an unexpected way."

The leader of Team 10 bowed slightly and shook the proffered hand. "I'm sure we can sort this out in as smooth of a manner as possible," he replied. "There must be a reason that the leader of Hidden Grass has resorted to such unorthodox measures." He turned to his student and added, "This is Nara Shikamaru, one of my three genin…" The spiky-tailed genius exchanged pleasantries with the Flower clan ninja as his teacher continued, "…and my other two students are currently in our suite. If you run across them, their names are Akimichi Chōji and Yamanaka Ino. I am Sarutobi Keisei, their jōnin commander."

"Yurinojō," Haruna's bodyguard said simply, though his expression twitched slightly upon hearing Keisei's last name, a fact that Shikamaru didn't miss. "My brother, Kikunojō, is also here with me as Lady Haruna's protection, but like your other two genin, he is currently resting. The daimyo is also ready to retire for the night, but she's been somewhat…restless given the recent events and would rather meet with you before taking her leave." He shifted his position and allowed them space to walk. "If you would, come on in, but please don't take too long. I want to allow Lady Haruna time to rest." Both Leaf ninja bowed their heads in acceptance of that request and shuffled in, taking note of the similar design of the adjacent living quarters.

As they did, a door to one of the bedrooms opened, and the daimyo of the Land of Vegetables slipped into the living room. Like her bodyguard, she was plain in appearance, pretty without being overly attractive. Her brown hair was down from any normal ornamental style, and her purple eyes appraised the two newcomers to her space. "Thank you for assisting me with this," she said, bowing to both of them in turn and receiving similar greetings. "I was hoping this wouldn't be necessary, but this odd aggression by Hidden Grass and Lady Toki's disappearance were more than enough reason to request assistance in getting this treaty signed."

"Our other team should be arriving at Lady Toki's last known location by the end of the day, your highness," Keisei replied, checking his cellular just to be sure he hadn't received any new notifications. "And with my team, your bodyguards, and a veritable battalion of ninja monks, I can definitely say that you'll be safe here."

"Let's hope that you're right, sensei," she said, the nervousness in her voice still very evident. "Please, I know the monks have said this as well, but if you need anything, feel free to make yourself at home here or ask any questions that you need. I fear that I won't be getting much sleep tonight anyways." She bowed once more and retreated to her quarters, softly shutting the door behind her.

Yurinojō gave both Keisei and Shikamaru a look that expressed everything he wanted to say. "I know you have patrols to do, but don't hesitate to stop in later if you feel the need. Either myself or my brother should be awake."

Both Leaf ninja dipped their heads in acknowledgement and made their way back to the door. "We most certainly will. Thank you for your help and cooperation in this matter," Keisei said before closing the door behind him.

Shikamaru extracted his own cell from his pocket and looked at the time, which read just after 1:30 in the morning. "Well, sensei, how do you want to do this? Shall I take the living quarters, and you patrol the…"

"That can wait," the Sarutobi clan leader interrupted him, checking the time on his own phone. "I want to take you to meet someone first, as long as you can keep your mouth shut about this from Ino and Chōji."

Despite his confusion, shown by the slight rise of his eyebrow, the teenage genius shrugged apathetically, and Keisei recognized that was as good as an acceptance of those terms. However, he wasn't getting off completely clean. "Is this really worth keeping them in the dark?" he hissed uncharacteristically. "If this is going in the direction that I think it is, I don't know what you stand to gain by shutting them out."

"I'm not keeping it from them, but I think they would understand better if I told them after this nonsense is all done," the jōnin whispered back, ushering the pointy-haired genin towards the door that would lead them into the main part of the Fire Temple. "Now hush and follow me. I don't want to disturb any of the monks who might be trying to rest."

"And yet here we are, off to undoubtedly wake up someone who probably doesn't want to be woken up," Shikamaru muttered under his breath, following his master through the complex. The inside of the temple was much like the outside, befitting the simple lifestyles of the monks while still maintaining a measure of elegance in line with the religion those men practiced. Still, the uniform arrangement of quarters was somewhat odd and not unlike that of a prison, with the blank windowless doors of each of the rooms painting a bleak picture of the building and the lack of significant light making the holy space seem more like a cave than anything else.

The duo slowly made their way down to the second sublevel of the temple, finding much of the same in the way of quarters in the first basement. However, the bottom yielded some variety, with a handful of suites not unlike the ones in the side building and the main worship area highlighting the floor. As they walked past the open entryway to the large meeting space, Shikamaru could see a few monks scattered in the room, barely visible in the faint candlelight as they knelt on the floor, steeped in lengthy prayers and chants.

Of the four suites, the first two were either empty, or the occupants were already asleep judging by the lack of any light perforating the blinds. The third showed signs of life, as evidenced by the open door, but the smell of freshly extinguished candle smoke and lack of light indicated that the owner of that room wasn't currently at home. The fourth was the only one that had awake tenants, as both Keisei and Shikamaru noted the shadows of at least two people shifting through the room.

Walking up to that particular door, Keisei rapped smartly on it three times, and a faint call of acknowledgement emanated from beyond. A moment later, a woman opened the door and appraised the two Leaf ninja, showered in sudden light. Her appearance was mostly normal, as she sported shaggy brown hair and wore a mostly plain dress, though the clothing was obviously tailored for a ninja. However, what gave her an air of mystique was the two orbs of crimson that flashed in the light of the suite. Her gaze was mostly neutral while looking at the genin, but as her eyes moved to Keisei, they lit up with recognition and pleasure. "Look at you. All grown up and a team leader," she said, her voice an unexpectedly sultry and deep tone. "We were expecting you. You chose a good night to come, Misao has been somewhat uncontrollable this evening." She then surprised Shikamaru by embracing Keisei in a tight but brief hug before releasing him.

The normally good-natured but currently taciturn Sarutobi cracked a slight grin. "It's good to see you, Kurenai. I'm sorry we took such a long time getting here, but I didn't want to get sucked into the mission before we had a chance to visit with you."

"That's fine," the red eyed woman said, dismissing his apology with a wave of her hand. "I remember what it was like. I'm not that old yet."

A slightly mischievous look overtook Keisei's face. "Yeah, but I do outrank you now, _chūnin_, so let the two of us in before these monks get angry at us for disrupting their worship time." She rolled her eyes and shifted aside to let both men into the suite, Shikamaru trailing behind in bewilderment. The appearance of these quarters was much like the ones they were borrowing from the protectors of the Fire Temple, though it was apparent that this particular apartment of sorts was much more of a permanent residence, judging by the broken-in feeling and presence of pictures and relics from the past scattered throughout the space.

Someone was in the kitchen shuffling about, but the two visible people in the living room couldn't be any different. The intelligent Nara quickly identified the young Misao squirming around in a blanket, the remnants of a cookie or morsel hanging somewhat askew from her mouth. A long shock of dark hair topped off the squiggling bundle, and as she crankily fought for control of the biscuit, her eyes cracked, revealing similar red orbs to those of the woman who now took her from the man failing to get her under control.

This obviously wasn't the girl's father, as this person was decked out in monk's robes, but he was evidently no stranger to the toddler, despite his inability to get her to calm down. His dress mirrored every other monk the Leaf ninja had seen up until that point, except for one thing – the sash hanging around his waist like a belt, with the kanji for 'fire' prominently displayed on the red and white fabric. This monk also exuded more of a silent fury than the others, though it wasn't immediately apparent with the way he quickly deposited Misao on her mother. "I'm so sorry, Kurenai, but child rearing doesn't seem to be in my future," he said apologetically, looking entirely uncomfortable with the situation.

The red eyed woman gave him a rueful grin. "Well, seeing as you took an oath of chastity, I would hope not." She turned to the two new arrivals and handed the gurgling child over to Keisei, who happily took her and began to act like a goofy uncle. Misao was quick to pick up on the different person once she locked eyes with him.

"Unca' Keisei!" she gurgled, waving her hands happily briefly before wrapping her chubby fingers and arms around his neck.

The Sarutobi clan leader slowly moved over to the couch, and once he was seated, he slowly pulled the young girl away so he could once more look her in the eye. "How's my favorite niece doing?" he asked quietly, as if the answer was some kind of state secret.

Of course, children know no volume control, and the answer was immediately blurted out. "I'm goo'! You need ta visit me mor'!"

"I'll do my best, my little princess," he replied solemnly before handing her off to Kurenai, who had come over and sat besides him on the couch.

As she struggled to get the energetic toddler under control, she did her best to turn to the masterful monk to explain who these people are. "You remember Asuma's brother, right? He came to visit us a few years ago when his chūnin squad needed to get some information from Sentoki. He's got a genin team now, and this is one of his students…"

"Nara Shikamaru," the normally slow teen actually jolted across the room and offered his hand out to the powerful monk. "And you're the head of this temple, right? Master Chiriku, isn't it? You are one of the Twelve Ninja Guardians of the Land of Fire, aren't you?"

The master monk was briefly taken aback but quickly recovered and shook the proffered hand. "I'm impressed, young genin," he said in a low tone. "Not many from your generation are even aware of the existence of the Twelve Ninja Guardians. Mostly because we don't technically exist any more in an official capacity, outside of myself and my partner on the occasional request from the Fire Daimyo." He then turned to Misao's uncle and bowed slightly. "And of course I remember you, my friend. Asuma won't stop talking about your exploits whenever he gets a letter from you."

Shikamaru looked expectant, waiting for the answer from the tall bald man, but instead it came from a bodiless voice in the kitchen area. "I'm not that bad, am I?" The Nara teen snuck a glance at his teacher, but outside of a slight tightening of his face, he didn't seem that fazed.

"Yes you are that bad. Almost as bad as when Kurenai would send you letters while we were on missions back in the old days," Chiriku retorted. A few seconds later, another man emerged, slightly taller than the monk and sporting a similar sash as a loose bandanna around his neck. He had spiky dark brown hair and a face that immediately made the connection in Shikamaru's mind as to the identity of the new arrival. As Chiriku's so-called 'partner' walked across the room, he scratched at his grizzled chin strap beard with one hand while he handed a bottle of milk to Kurenai, and Misao began sucking on it as soon as her mouth made contact with the plastic teat. He gave his daughter a quick rub on top of her head before turning around to see the visitors to his abode. "A jōnin, huh, and with his own team to boot. Minato must be short on good ninja these days," he said to Keisei, appraising him with a piercing stare and his hands on his hips.

"Two ninja, to be exact. And there's not a cloud of smoke around you like usual. You stopped smoking," Team 10's leader retorted, "What did Kurenai threaten you with in order to get that to happen?"

The bearded guardian let out a thunderous bark of laughter. "You're married, aren't you? I think we're both well aware of the kinds of things that our wives can use against us." He then surprised Shikamaru by closing the distance and embracing Keisei. "It's good to see you again, brother."

The younger Sarutobi brother was quick to reciprocate the embrance. "Same here, Asuma." He held the hug for a few seconds before they released from each other, trying to act cool about it but not entirely succeeding. He turned to his student, who was still somewhat confused by the whole scenario, and said, "I'm sure you have an idea of who this is, but I'll introduce you just the same. My older brother Asuma and his now wife decided a few years ago that their time and abilities would be better spent outside of the village, though I don't really know what they were thinking when they moved in with a bunch of bald, chaste dudes…"

"Hey now…" Chiriku muttered good-naturedly, even as Misao yanked at his hand to play.

"…so they live here as the remnants of the Twelve Ninja Guardians. All three are in direct service to the daimyo of the Land of Fire. Thankfully there haven't been too many disturbances in the past few years, so they've chosen instead to raise their daughter here and take the occasional side mission when the need arises."

Shikamaru nodded thoughtfully, sufficiently impressed. He shook the massive paw that was offered to him by Asuma and was somewhat surprised at the intense look he received from the older man. "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," he said politely, silently wondering what he had forgotten to scrub from his face after dinner.

"I feel the same way," Misao's father replied, giving him a faint grin. "It's nice to see that my genin are in good hands."

That was a little odd and definitely unexpected. "'Your' genin, sir?" Shikamaru asked in confusion, "What do you mean by that?"

Keisei took over, as Misao suddenly bit Chiriku and elicited a yelp of pain from the normally stoic monk. "You know how the current heir or leader of the Sarutobi clan is traditionally assigned the heirs of the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi clans?" The intelligent teen nodded; that was common knowledge in the village. "Well, being the older, more handsome, and most talented of the Third Hokage's heirs…" That elicited an eye roll from the obvious parties, "…I would have been the first choice, but after Kurenai and I decided that our time would be better spent outside of the village, protecting and watching over it from afar, my little brother here took over the clan and the honor of teaching the next generation of the Ino-Shika-Chō combination, as my father and uncles did before me."

"And while I'm eternally grateful that I don't have to listen to you fluff yourself up on a daily basis, I still think your talents would be better spent in the village," Keisei muttered back, his voice growing mellow. "I know you don't necessarily agree with what Father did, or why he did it, but I also know that the result wasn't the worst thing that could have happened. The culprit could have gotten away, the fox could still be a malevolent spirit, and the Uzumaki clan could have been wiped from the earth for good."

Kurenai's face showed that she was worried about where this was going, but she wasn't able to stop her husband from snapping in time. "You don't know what could have happened!" the bearded man hissed in a low tone, cognizant enough to try to shield his daughter from his growing ire. "If only I had been there at his side…but no one would let us near the battle!"

"Chiriku, why don't you try to put Misao to bed?" the red eyed mother said softly, quickly handing over her daughter to the bald monk. He nodded, taking the rapidly tiring child and shuffling into an adjoining bedroom. She then turned to her husband to try to avert any sort of disaster. "Asuma, you don't know what would have happened. Both Minato and your father could have died, or both of them might have lived." Moving slightly closer, she gently touched his arm and looked deep into his eyes. "Your father died doing what he believed to be right, what he believed was best for the good of the village."

Asuma wrenched his arm away and stalked towards the kitchen, baring his back to the group in his place. He picked up a glass of what was very obviously some form of alcoholic beverage and took a deep swig. "I never got a chance to apologize for all of the distress I caused him by considering the appointment to the Twelve Ninja Guardians. Instead, the damn fox lives on, and I'm left to question whether or not the world is better off."

It was apparent that Keisei and Kurenai had been down this road with him before, given their exasperated looks, and the former Leaf chūnin especially looked distressed at how he was attacking the glass of bourbon. Shikamaru, however, was not privy to any of this information, though he was starting to piece together the scraps he had heard, and that last one in particular got him riled up. "I wouldn't be so quick to judge someone you've never met," he said quietly, quickly drawing the angry gaze of the irate father.

"What do you know?" he snapped, slamming the now empty glass down on the countertop.

That took the genin aback, but he wasn't about to stand down. "For one, Uzumaki Naruto is a good friend of mine, and I don't appreciate people badmouthing my friends. Sure, he may be one of the denser ninja I've ever been around, but there's not a person around I'd rather have in a pinch than him. I've had the occasion to chat with the fox when that knucklehead gets saucy during training. Outside of a somewhat snarky sense of humor, the thing's harmless and actually quite the enjoyable conversationalist if you can get past the reputation. The half of Kurama in his mother is basically the same, if what I've heard is any indication."

"_Kurama_?" Asuma asked incredulously, and it was beginning to become obvious that he hadn't been entirely sober since they arrived at the apartment. "I'm glad to know you're buddy-buddy with the giant murderous demon fox." He snorted and unsteadily made his way over to the recliner, dropping into it unceremoniously.

Shikamaru shot his teacher a look before briskly walking back to the door. "You don't know a damn thing…" he muttered behind him, "…and you won't even begin to understand until you stop running away from whatever you're afraid to confront." He opened the door and slipped out, dropping a final comment before he disappeared. "Let's get on to our rounds, sensei. We don't want to let Lady Haruna down."

The younger Sarutobi brother turned to his older sibling, a look of sorrow painted on his face. "One of these days, you need to stop running from the past and learn to accept the present so you can prepare for what the future holds. Father used to tell us that all the time, remember?" He slipped into the hallway as well. "I'll bring my other two students around when you've sobered up. It was nice seeing you again, Kurenai." As he hastened to catch up with his student, he thought he could hear the shattering of a glass, though he could have been imagining it.

_**A few hours later, in the early hours of the morning, the Land of Birds**_

Deep within the woods surrounding the capital of the Land of Birds, Team 8 had fanned out in search of the missing daimyo and her escort party, having arrived late the previous night and woken up early for this very purpose. They were having very little luck picking up any trace of Toki's trail in the path that the group would have taken, but they didn't want to miss anything.

Shisui's eyes were both active, giving him some sort of odd super vision, with his Sharingan capturing details others would overlook without a second thought and the transplant in his other socket extending his visual range out to a kilometer scale. He stood on the actual highway, which itself looked rather clean for a major thruway, so that he could get a maximum range with his ocular powers. Not too far in front of him, easily within normal visual sight, was Hinata, who was using her own Byakugan and much longer range to scan the area. If there was anything she couldn't pick up with fine detail, the plan was to relay the location back to him, but so far, neither of them had been able to see much of anything.

The cyclopean hybrid could see Shino a few hundred feet to his right, not moving very much but taking in a lot of data, if the charged chakra clouds buzzing around him and out into the surrounding forest were any indication. Still, he could see the slight twitching of the insect lover's eyes behind his shades, and the way he moved indicated a severe frustration with not being able to do what his clan specialized in.

Likewise, about as far away but to the left instead, Kiba and Akamaru were showing similar signs of frustration, but instead of internalizing their ire, they chose to verbalize as they stomped through the bush. Shisui couldn't help but chuckle at some of the things that he could see coming out of Kiba's mouth, and he could only guess that Akamaru was popping off some good retorts of his own.

The team leader refocused his eyes on sweeping the area as they continued their slow march away from the village, but an outburst that wasn't complaining from the Inuzuka duo quickly grabbed his attention, and he could see that Hinata and Shino were alerted to it as well. Given the urgent nature of the mission, he was at their side in literally the next second, thanks to his superb mastery of the Shunshin no Jutsu (Body Flicker Technique). "What is it?" he asked, only half paying attention as his eyes raked the immediate surroundings.

"I caught a whiff of a remnant of Toki's scent here," Kiba growled, he and Akamaru both not stopping in breathing in the various smells of the forest. "It continues off towards the Fire Temple, as if she wasn't hindered, but the two scents of the people that were supposed to be with here stop right here, and two other very faint smells join up with her here."

"Lady Toki, Kiba," Shisui said, but not in an admonishing way, "And I can't tell that there is any evidence of a battle here. Why would the scents just suddenly swap out like that? And why can't we see them? We have four of the best eyes in the village here."

Hinata and Shino finally caught up to the other two members of their team, and while the Hyūga heir took a moment to catch her breath, the Aburame heir murmured, "My bugs have been somewhat on edge, as if there's something blocking their ability to cut through a haze that we can't see."

"I don't see anything out of the ordinary, either, sensei," Hinata added, her hands lightly resting on her knees as her head continued to swivel around slowly. "There are only five chakra signatures, and they are the five of us."

He couldn't disagree with that, as Shisui confirmed what she had seen. He identified Shino and Akamaru's average chakra pools (for the latter, average for his breed), Hinata's somewhat below average reservoir, and Kiba's rather large repositories…

"Hold on," he said slowly, peering closer at his wild student with both of his eyes. "Kiba, since when did you have an adult-sized amount of chakra?" The other two genin changed their focus, and the looks of confusion on their faces confirmed his suspicions.

Meanwhile, the boy in question began lifting his arms and legs in a vain attempt to explain the mysterious phenomenon. "I mean, I have been working out more…" he muttered more to himself and Akamaru than anyone else, "…didn't know it would do that much good, though…" A thundering 'woof' from his dog companion briefly brought his self-induced high to a halt, and he added, "Geez, what crawled up your butt and died? No need to be that mean…"

"I highly doubt that running an extra mile every now and then puts you in contention with the Fourth Hokage when it comes to chakra levels," the eyepatch-wearing jōnin replied dryly. "Still, if there was a ninjutsu at work here, we would have been able to see it." As he said that, he gestured to Hinata, who suddenly grew contemplative. He noticed this and watched her face slowly morph into a form of tentative understanding. "What is it?" he asked, and the other two teens turned their attention to her, Kiba ceasing in his self-assessment.

"What if it's genjutsu?" she spelled out slowly, not exactly looking sure of her assessment.

The Inuzuka youth and dog were both not fans of nor were good at that particular area, so human and canine alike both gave some form of a neutral shrug. Shino's eyebrows knitted slightly as he considered the possibility, but Shisui didn't seem convinced.

"But we could be able to see that, wouldn't we?" he asked, though now he sounded unsure of that, despite his clan's reputation for genjutsu-based warfare. "The Byakugan can usually see the residual chakra from something like that, and I know my Sharingan would cut through it as soon as it could lock on to the source." He didn't say this, but they had already tried dispelling genjutsu as soon as they had arrived and had continued throughout the early hours as they moved away from the capital.

"Maybe that's the problem," Hinata countered as she took another look at Kiba's bloated chakra supply. "The effect is so widespread, and the creator has a decent head start on us, so a simple dismissal might not be sufficient because there's nothing to lock onto."

She brought up a valid point, and both of the analytically minded members of the team considered the possibility, while Kiba and Akamaru continued to look confused, choosing to instead debate quietly about the former's workout routine once more.

As they continued their somewhat stupid and mostly harmless argument, Shisui pumped more energy into his eyes, being able to now distinguish the very (and it was still almost impossible to see) slight haze of chakra that perforated the surroundings. With that information in hand, he could see why the simple dispel that most genin were taught didn't work as planned. Instead, he chose to go with the Genwake (Illusion Cleaver) method that was more of a chūnin or jōnin level skill; it expelled a focused burst of chakra from the user's body and forcibly eliminated any foreign chakra in the air. This was effective at revealing nearly any illusion, and he could count on one hand those that wouldn't go away, two of which were in his own arsenal.

Focusing his energy, he initiated the technique, and his genin could feel the short burst of chakra as it swept over the region. They all could also hear the multiple yelps of protest and muffled cries as Kiba and Akamaru suddenly realized that they were standing on top of two people.

"Well, I think we found the missing escorts," Shino said in a rare moment of sarcasm for him. Indeed, as Kiba and Shisui got them back to their feet, it was obvious that these two were the consort and bodyguard of Lady Toki. The husband was a rather plain looking man, with shaggy brown hair, large glasses, and exceedingly normal dress for the position he held as Chief Advisor to the daimyo. He was mostly definitely wearing a look of worry on his face, not even appearing that fearful of the ordeal he had just been put through.

The other man was actually rather similar to Kankurō in appearance. He had close cropped hair and a face full of makeup. His outfit was very utilitarian, allowing full motion of the arms for combat, and his expression was peevish, to say the least. "I thought we'd never get found," he said, taking Shisui's hand and rising to his feet; his associate doing the same with Kiba's aid. "I assume you all are the Leaf squad that was dispatched to aid us in the treaty signing?"

"You would be correct," the Uchiha jōnin replied. "I am Uchiha Shisui, and these are my students: Aburame Shino…" at which the tall teen nodded his head simply, "…Hyūga Hinata…" with a simply curtsy from her, "…and Inuzuka Kiba and his dog companion Akamaru."

"Ah yes, the two that kept stepping on us while you tried to figure out how to get past that genjutsu…" he said imperiously, shooting dirty looks at the teen and dog.

Kiba looked like he wanted to say something to the bodyguard, but the man he was assisting cut in and interrupted. "That's enough," he said in a soft but firm tone, "We need to work together, not snap at each other's throats." He turned to Shisui with an apologetic look on his face. "I'm sorry, but we're a bit on edge and in a rush to get my wife back. I'm Toki's husband Chishima, and this is our head of security, Hōki."

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, your Highness, despite the extenuating circumstances," the leader of Team 8 said politely, shaking hands with him. "I know you must be anxious to get Toki back, so if you don't mind, would you explain explaining what happened while we travel towards the Fire Temple?"

The nervous consort of the Land of Birds nodded immediately, and after a stern look from his boss, Hōki did as well, though he also sighed to show his protest at the quick turnaround. "Let's go get my wife back," Chishima said resolutely.

With a quick glance at his own team and seeing no objections, Shisui nodded, and the group of seven took off for the northern edge of the Land of Fire.

"We didn't see them coming at all," Hōki started the explanation without warning, and his tone indicated he was not very happy at being ambushed the way they had been. "We had just departed the capital, so we can only assume they had been privy to our travel plans and were waiting until we were just far enough away to not cause any immediate alarm."

"Who were they?" Shisui asked. "We weren't aware of any major enemies of either Birds or Vegetables."

"Grass ninja, if their headbands were any indication," the bodyguard replied sourly.

That was certainly unexpected, as both Shino and Hinata's faces scrunched in confusion, and the jōnin leader added, "Grass ninja? I thought they were allies of both countries?"

"So did we, but sure enough, two of them jumped us and even identified themselves as Grass ninja," the makeup-wearing bodyguard grumbled. "A boy and a girl, maybe a few years older than your kids. Brat had more than a passing resemblance to Hidden Grass's leader, and the chick's eyes were frighteningly similar to the Rinnegan."

That rung a bell in the back of Shisui's mind, though he knew his students wouldn't know anything from that statement outside of the lore of the Rinnegan. "Hmm…" he pondered, "I think I may have an idea of who those two were, and because it's those two, it's especially surprising that they attacked a convoy from the Land of Birds."

"Did the Grass ninja say anything?" Shino asked unexpectedly, raising a valid question.

Chishima merely shrugged, forgoing any verbal communication in favor of trying to keep up with the fitter ninja. Hōki didn't have much to add, either. "They didn't say a thing that I could hear. We were tied up and under the genjutsu faster than we could react."

The team leader nodded, absorbing all of that information as the large group made haste to the Fire Temple, hopefully before anything untoward became of either daimyo.

_**Maybe an hour or so later, Snow Country**_

Team 7 trudged into the lavish five-star hotel where their rooms for their visit had been booked, trying their best to not track snow in and failing rather miserably at that. Having to adjust to the colder climate of the northern country, each of the members of the squad was wearing a slightly warmer version of their normal outfits. Naruto and Kakashi were mostly unchanged, though both sported heavier shirts under their normal clothing, and the jinchūriki also wore a red scarf that he had received from a Secret Santa gift exchange a few years prior. Sakura was bundled up in a warm red jacket, matching beanie, and heavy grey sweatpants, and as she breathed in the heated air, she took off her gloves and rubbed her hands together. Sasuke likewise wore a similarly stockier version of his own outfit, though his jacket was a wooly hoodie, and his ears were covered by dark collapsible earmuffs.

This particular hotel was on the outskirts of the capital of the Land of Snow, inconvenient for normal business but perfect for being in close proximity to the movie set. In fact, many if not all of the actors and staff were staying in that very hotel, and as the Leaf ninja acclimated themselves to the warmer temperatures, a group of people emerged from one of the side ball rooms to greet them.

At the head was most obviously Kazahana Koyuki, or Fujikaze Yukie as she was known as to all but a select few people. Her long black hair was down, and her face was mostly bare of makeup, but she was still a rare beauty, and it was no surprise to anyone why she was such a popular actress. She wore a casual purple coat over a simple yellow blouse and some light blue pants, and her indigo orbs appraised the visitors with a mild amount of interest. Both Sasuke and Sakura had to grab Naruto's arms in order to stop him from rushing over and doing something that may cause an international incident.

Her bodyguard was an older gentleman, and while his spindly frame and unassuming grandfatherly appearance didn't exactly radiate power or authority, Kakashi suspected that he wouldn't be a slouch in a fight. His greying beard and hair were immaculately trimmed, and his small spectacles rested in front of his small but alert eyes. His outfit was very utilitarian, but again it was likely he was hiding some manner of protection in his robes.

The third man was likely the movie director behind the _Princess Gale_ blockbusters. He was the most flamboyant in appearance, with blonde hair puffed up by a lot of hairspray, a loud coat over top a similarly garish shirt, and loose slacks. His attitude just exuded flair but in a very odd sense. And Sasuke couldn't swear by it, but it looked like the man had some makeup sprinkled around his eyes.

It was this one that floated forward and stuck his hand out. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I am Kendaru Yuika, the director and shining light behind the _Princess Gale_ movies," he said in a high-pitched tone. Both Naruto and Sasuke raised an eyebrow, and the blond had to suppress a quick giggle at the odd name.

Kakashi slowly shook the man's hand, not that familiar with people so outgoing given the somewhat isolated nature of the Hidden Leaf Village. "I'm glad to see that everyone is safe and sound, especially you, your Highness." Koyuki cocked her head slightly and gave the jōnin a thin smile.

"I'm glad that if there was anyone here to help us out, it would be you, Hatake Kakashi," she said smoothly, bowing to the four foreign ninja. "Yes, we are fine for the moment, but I fear that my uncle and his band of rogue Snow ninja may grow a little more fearless now that our filming has taken us outside of the main capital. I hope that you can help avoid any disaster and allow us to get this movie completed in a timely fashion."

Sakura twitched slightly, and she whispered to Sasuke, "Shouldn't she be a little more worried about the country than her movie?"

The Uchiha teen shrugged slightly, though the confusion dancing through his eyes betrayed his own thoughts. "She's not exactly what I would have expected, and I suspect…" as he snuck a glance at Naruto, "…that our feelings are unanimous."

Kakashi returned the bow from the princess. "I appreciate your confidence in our abilities, Your Highness, but let's hold off on assuming anything until both the job and the movie area done." He turned slightly and waved at his students. "These are my genin. Haruno Sakura…" the pinkette bowed respectfully, "…Uchiha Sasuke…" the quiet teenager merely nodded his head, "…and finally Uzumaki Naruto, who is quite the fan of your work." The blond teen smiled nervously but waved at her, though he was immediately disappointed that she was already turning to head back into the depths of the hotel as he did that. The rather effeminate director traipsed after her, obviously looking to stay on her good side.

"We will discuss things further at lunch, right before we head out to the movie set," the older assistant said softly, "If you need anything, I am Asama Sandayū. Feel free to call me at any time." He handed Kakashi a slip of paper with his number written on it and followed after the cold actress and royalty.

The lone jōnin took a quick glance at the info and committed it to memory before stowing it into one of the pouches on his flak jacket. "Let's go ahead and get settled into our rooms, and we'll meet down here for lunch in a few hours, okay?" Both Sasuke and Sakura nodded and followed him towards one of the lobby elevators, but Naruto merely sent a disgruntled look towards the hallway down which Koyuki and her associates had gone. As he picked his backpack up, he looked longingly at the computer sleeve, where a fresh picture of the actress was hiding, with the hope that he could acquire a signature.

He was only broken from his reverie by a squawk of protest from Sakura, and he quickly shuffled over and slipped in before the doors slid shut behind him.

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned! Before people roast me about misnaming the child, take a moment to review the circumstances here; things are not the same as canon. I'll also help by not discounting the inclusion of Mirai at the appropriate time, emphasis on the latter word.

Also if you want to know why Kurenai's technically still only a chūnin, it's in the manga during the Chūnin Exams (if you look hard enough).

**Review Responses:**

**jtblion/Ravenstorm of Thunderclan:** Haha, holidays are rough man. It's impossible to not get sidetracked. Glad to see you're sticking with it!

**Appletank:** Nah, man, it's all good. That's a very good question, though, and I think you'll get an answer during the Chūnin Exams.


	28. (Exam Interlude 8) Chapter 26

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, including in this chapter, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Team 10 finally made their way out of the forests of the northern part of the Land of Fire late at night. After they were shown to their rooms by some of the monks and had some dinner, Shikamaru and Keisei took the first shift, and the team leader guided his student towards another suite in the basement of the temple after visiting with the Vegetables party. Occupying that particular room were two former ninja from the Hidden Leaf Village, Yūhi Kurenai and Keisei's own brother Sarutobi Asuma along with their toddler daughter Misao and Chiriku, Asuma's old partner in the Twelve Ninja Guardians. Conversation started pleasant but quickly turned sour once the topics turned to the late Third Hokage and the Nine Tailed Fox, and Keisei aborted the family reunion once Shikamaru got his feathers ruffled and the alcohol came out. Elsewhere, after straining their senses, Kiba and Akamaru found the missing consort and bodyguard of Lady Toki, quite literally under their feet, and made haste to the Fire Temple after learning that Hidden Grass ninjas might have been behind the attack. Finally, Team 7 arrived on the outskirts of the Land of Snow and were greeted by Koyuki Kazahana, the director of the _Princess Gale_ movies, and her personal bodyguard. Her appreciation of the extra protection was somewhat offset by her cold demeanor, and Naruto couldn't help but be somewhat dismayed at her frosty personality.

**(Exam Interlude) Chapter 26 – The Tainted Snow Strikes! Kazahana Dōto Emerges!**

_**Nearby, at an undisclosed location near the site of the movie filming**_

A cell phone buzzed loudly a number of times, and the light from the display lit up the otherwise dim space of the well furnished cave. The glow didn't reveal much outside of a few thrown shadows on a bed roll and a table, but it did illuminate the rattling tarp covering the entrance to the cave.

A man sitting at the lone table within the natural enclosure picked up the device, jabbed at the call button, and answered it. "What is it?" he growled in a low tone. "Is there a problem? I thought we agreed that I would be making contact when we were ready to move out."

"There might be, sir, and I thought it prudent to inform you of the new developments," the high-pitched female tone on the other end replied, the nervousness readily apparent. "Your niece hired a team from the Hidden Leaf Village as an added layer of security."

"So?" he asked, not seeing the initial issue with this. "We all agreed that we were expecting her to make a move like that. So what's the problem?"

There was a pause of a couple of seconds before his subordinate replied. "It's not that she hired the team, it's who is on the team that she hired that may end up causing undue hindrance to our mission…" The man in the cave rolled his eyes at her apparent distress and waited for her to respond…and waited…and waited…

Finally after twenty seconds of waiting, he grew irritated. "I don't have all day, Fubuki," he growled more forcefully. "Spit it out already."

"I assume that you remember Hatake Kakashi?" she said slowly, "Well, he has a team now, and that's who the Fourth Hokage chose as the escorts…"

Ah, yes. That struck a chord in the mind of the temporarily cave dweller, from nearly ten years prior if he remembered correctly. The first failed coup d'etat of the Hidden Snow Village and Land of Snow attempted by his former team, then chūnin… It had been a long time since he had thought about those events.

Growing tired of the complacent nature of the daimyo and the Lead Jōnin of the Snow Ninja, he and his protégés set out to "free" the nation through violence and fear, and it would have been successful if a squad of Leaf ANBU agents hadn't interfered at the last second. He hadn't been present at the battle where they had extracted Koyuki, but his three students had relayed how dominant the son of the White Fang had been in combat, and he understood some of Fubuki's hesitation. "Yes, he is quite the target, but I'm sure that I can take him one on one if the need arises. I understand you three were unable to do much the last time you battled, but it's been awhile, and we've grown just as much, if not more than him."

"Yes, I know that, master, but there's also the matter of his genin. They may also complicate matters slightly…" the rogue chūnin trailed off, trying her best not to upset the somewhat volatile renegade.

The burly man stood from the table and rubbed at his temples with one of his large hands, trying to keep his composure and only somewhat achieving that mission. "Care to explain, Fubuki?" he hissed, "How can a bunch of snot nosed brats 'complicate matters?'"

"Well…would it make more sense if I said that the heir of the Uchiha clan and the Fourth Hokage's son are two of those genin?" he heard her say nervously, and that was just the icing on the cake. That would be somewhat of a problem; even with three rogue chūnin that were more like low-grade jōnin in strength, two powerful genin like those two combined with a dangerous ninja like Hatake Kakashi would be a serious hurdle to overcome without his help.

"I see your point…" he said grudgingly. "Let's delay any sort of move for another few days while I think about our options and you three observe the new arrivals. I'll be in contact soon." Without waiting to hear her confirmation of the plan, he snapped shut the flip phone and tossed it on the table in annoyance. This would be much harder to do with those pests constantly buzzing around his niece, but not impossible.

He stood up abruptly and walked over to the cave entrance, brushing his way through the tarp into the cold winter wind and flooding his small abode with the thin light of mid morning. He couldn't move far without toppling over the edge of the small cliff, but he could observe quite a bit, and he looked down a few hundred feet to the small valley beneath him, where a number of trailers and trucks were stationed, ready to begin in the near future…

…xXx…

Kazahana Koyuki walked into the conference room in the hotel that they had converted into an impromptu dining area. Most of the cast and crew were already present, but the princess-turned-actress wasn't interested in most of them or in grabbing a quick bite to eat. She was looking for first her assistant, and then the Hidden Leaf team to ask them a couple of questions. As she scanned the room, mostly ignoring the light conversation and attempts to get her to speak, she noticed that while the latter group wasn't currently present, her personal assistant was in the room, in the far corner talking with two people who she recognized as a prop assistant and one of the director's underlings. The pink-haired young woman stowed her phone as she spoke in low tones with the other two, and as the ruler of the Land of Snow shifted her way through the room, they began to speed up their pace, as if it was some sort of top secret missive.

As she approached, the young daimyo couldn't quite understand why her assistant was talking with those three. Certainly her job was to coordinate with a number of departments and set up meetings for Koyuki, but a few assistants weren't usually the type of people within the crowd of the movie production crew that she would be talking with. Drawing close and seeing the three together, she couldn't help but feel like there was something about them that sparked a memory in the back of her mind…but nothing truly clicked. "Airi…" she said softly, startling the trio of assistants.

"We'll talk later, okay?" the short, pink-haired woman snapped, and the two men scampered away quickly. Turning to her boss, she shook her head and plastered a sickly sweet smile on her face. "Sorry about that, Miss Yukie. Those two were worried about some of the new props that we added to the script in the past couple of days, and I was calling a few of our men on the filming site to get their thoughts on it…"

The princess waved her off, stopping the rambling monologue. "That's fine, Airi. I just wanted to check on my plans for the rest of the day." 

The young woman picked up a tablet from the table next to her and began to scroll through the digital calendar. "Outside of filming a few scenes from Act 2, you don't have much on your agenda. Is there something you were curious about?"

The actress shook her head, lost in her thoughts as she kept tabs on the door. "It would be nice to have the afternoon or night free. I would like to discuss security arrangements with the Hidden Leaf team without worrying about serious time commitments. Do you think you can arrange that?"

Airi nodded, quickly blocking off a large chunk of time after dinner for just that purpose. "Done. I'll see to getting a room together for this meeting, and I'll send you the location when it's set." She made a quick note on her tablet and looked at her boss expectantly. "Anything else?"

Koyuki, not seeing the desired people at the door, nodded as she tore her gaze from the portal to the lobby. "What rooms did you assign to the Leaf ninja? I'd like to have a word with them over lunch, but they aren't here yet."

"Well…Miss Yukie, that looks like them, right?" The pink haired assistant pointed back to the door, and sure enough, Kakashi and two of his genin were just then sauntering through the door. Koyuki mentally kicked herself for turning away so soon and waved off the girl, quickly striding across the room. She once more ignored most of her associates and possible admirers amongst her crew and made it to the three ninja relatively fast. That was probably a good thing because only the girl really looked that comfortable with the situation; the two men were decidedly out of their element, if their subtle nervous gestures were any indication.

"Good afternoon, Miss Yukie," Kakashi said, remembering that most of the people there were unaware of her actual title and that she wanted it to stay that way until the threat was gone. "I assume that lunch will be served soon?"

"Yes, I believe the caterers will be bringing it out any moment now. If you'll follow me, I have seats for you at my table…?" She began to walk away, and the ninja had no chance to protest the special treatment or even get a word in edgewise. So…they quickly followed suit, shuffling through the mass of people beginning to settle down at tables for lunch. "I trust that your rooms were suitable?" the actress asked, slipping between two of the other major actors in the film, a fact that was not lost on Sakura as she had to tear her eyes away from the eye candy.

"They were more than alright, though you didn't have to give us all separate bedrooms in the suite," Kakashi reprimanded her slightly, feeling okay with it because they really didn't deserve any special treatment.

She waved him off impatiently and stopped at a table in the far corner of the converted ballroom, where five empty chairs sat around a large table set back somewhat from the rest of the groups. "Please, make yourself at home," she said, and as they sat down, it finally hit her that the team was missing a person. "Where is your blond friend?" she asked in confusion, not understanding why he wasn't there with the rest of his team.

They looked around, and the black-haired kid sighed in annoyance. "He's probably upstairs, still training," he muttered, and Koyuki remembered that his name was Sasuke…something. "I can go get him, hold on…" He made to get up, but the princess put a halt to that, her curiosity piqued.

"I need to go to my room for something," she said quickly, "Allow me to get him…if that's okay?" She looked to Kakashi for some measure of approval, and despite his confusion at the somewhat odd request, he shrugged noncommittally. "I'll be back soon. Please help yourself to the food if it arrives before we do." With that, she once more slipped back through the maze of tables and out into the lobby. There weren't many people milling about, and luckily no one that recognized her on sight, so she was able to make it to and into the elevator without too much fanfare.

A minute later, she emerged on the eleventh floor, where both her suite and those of the Leaf ninja were positioned. She walked down the hall a few steps and rapped on the door to room 1104. "Who is it?" a muffled voice emanated through the fine wood.

"Kazahana Koyuki," she replied softly; even though she was relatively sure they were alone on the floor, her sense of security refused to let her speak too loudly. As she had expected from their brief interactions earlier in the day, there was a mad scramble from within the suite that involved a number of things falling and being thrown around, and she couldn't help but chuckle slightly at that.

A moment later, the door flew open, and she was treated to the sight of a half naked Naruto, his pants on but his jacket thrown somewhat haphazardly over his bare chest. Despite her personal preferences in men, she couldn't help but be impressed by his decidedly not scrawny physique. "Yes, your highness?" he stammered, trying to close shut the jacket and failing. "What is it?"

"You didn't come down to lunch with the rest of your team, and I wanted to make sure that everything was alright," she replied stoically, trying to peek into the cluttered hotel suite. She spied a number of rubber fragments scattered across the floor, and she added a question as well, "May I ask what you're doing up here? Or do I even want to know…?"

The blond recovered from his initial rush of euphoria at having a famous princess and actress at his door at the cold, neutral tone emanating from her mouth, and he swung the door open fully, showing the pile of intact rubber balls on the floor and a number of shirtless clones who were similarly star struck. A glare from the original quickly forced them to dispel, causing the balls they had been holding to roll across the ground, but Koyuki still looked somewhat befuddled by the scene as one of the orbs tapped her toe. "Um…I lost track of the time. I was working on a new technique that I want to finish soon, but my phone was dead, and I forgot to check it…" His rambling explanation trailed off as he at least had the decency to look sheepish.

To his surprise, she waved his flimsy excuses off. "It's fine, really. I was actually hoping to catch you alone so I could apologize for earlier."

"Apologize?" Naruto didn't quite make the connection in his mind. "Apologize for what? You didn't do anything."

"Yes, I did," she pressed the issue. "I shouldn't have been so crass, and as someone who I will be relying on as protection, I should be grateful to you for putting yourself on the line for me."

Well that wasn't exactly the best or sincerest apology he had ever received, but it was better than nothing, and so the blond teen shrugged it off. "It's fine. I understand that you're under a lot of stress and busy and have your mind in a hundred different places. Though…" a thought crept into his mind about a possible play that could be pulled without his team interfering. "…there is something that might be good if you're alright with it."

Koyuki looked decidedly concerned about this 'something good' but played along with it. "Okay, what might that be?"

Naruto grinned widely. "How about an autograph and a picture with me?" He scrambled back into his room without waiting for an answer, sending rubber balls flying everywhere in his haste. "I think I have a photo in my bag somewhere, and my phone's got a decent enough camera…except for the whole battery problem…" he babbled as he unearthed everything from his backpack in search of the desired items.

Unfortunately, the princess wasn't having any of that, though she did feel a tinge of regret about it. "Um…Naruto…" she said slowly, thankful that she remembered his name because he perked up and stopped what he was doing as soon as she said it. "That may be a problem…"

"Why?" he asked in confusion, throwing his backpack aside; obviously the desired photo hadn't been in there or was hidden quite well.

"I have a contract that doesn't allow me to give away my image or likeness for free," she explained, thankful that she at least felt slightly guilty about it. "I would have to charge you a lot of money for those two things…" She trailed off, not really knowing how else to say it but in a blunt manner. Despite her usual apathy, she couldn't help but feel bad about the way his face fell.

"Oh…okay, then…" he mumbled, walking over to one of the chairs and flopping down, ignoring his discarded undershirt on the cushion. "That kinda stinks…"

"Like I said, my hands are tied…" the princess mumbled back, now starting to feel incredibly uncomfortable with her previously good-natured decision. Her eyes began to dart around, looking for some kind of out or change of subject, and she spied the rubber balls, some whole and some punctured, scattered across the floor. "May I ask what you've been working on in here?" she said hesitantly, leaning over, picking up one of the balls, and giving it an odd look.

The blond's head rose slightly, and his expression perked up slightly as he remembered what he had been doing before he had been interrupted. "Oh, that?" he asked dully. "It's just practice…one of my dad's most famous techniques. It hasn't exactly been going well."

Koyuki squeezed the ball slightly and gave him a somewhat skeptical look. "How do rubber balls help you to complete a technique?" she asked, not at all understanding what he was talking about. "It seems rather unsightly…" Immediately she noticed the tensing of his expression and hastily added an addendum. "I know your father's the Fourth Hokage, but ninja techniques are somewhat of a mystery and unseemly form of art to me, and I just don't know what I'm talking about."

Naruto sighed slightly but relented to her request. "So this technique is a spiraling ball of chakra, about the size of one of these." He reached down and picked up one of the balls by his feet. "It's a perfect mix of rotational and kinetic energy, and each step in learning it is supposed to teach one of those before combining them together. The first step, which I already did, was mastering the rotational aspect of the technique, and this part is supposed to give me the ability to pack a punch, but I can't get enough power in the ball to burst it like it should."

"So you're trying to get the ball to burst instead of pop?" Koyuki asked. When he nodded in the affirmative, she offered an alternative for him to consider. "Again, take this with a grain of salt since I barely know how to spell chakra, much less understand what it is, but if it's anything like gas, maybe thermal expansion might help?"

"You mean like the inert gas law?" Naruto asked, trying to remember back to some of the science classes he had been forced to take.

The normally stoic princess couldn't help but chuckle at his sour expression. "Yes, that's it. Maybe if you forcibly decreased the volume inside the ball or raised the heat of your energy-thingie, it might add some punch because of the pressure difference." The blond looked somewhat dumbfounded, but as his mind slowly processed the admittedly difficult science behind her words, his face broke out into a grin.

"You know, that might work…" he murmured. "Yeah…that might be the answer!" His face now in a full blown grin, he excitedly turned to his quest and said, "Thank you so much, your Highness!" The teen looked like he wanted to jump up and hug the Land of Snow daimyo, but she quickly put a stop to that.

"Not so fast, runt," she said, backing up a few steps. "My advice doesn't come cheap…"

The expression on Minato's son's face quickly drooped, and he grumbled, "Again with the money crap? Is this how all movie stars are?"

"Not in that way," she snapped, looking mildly offended that he wasn't showing her the level of respect that she had grown accustomed to. "And mind who you are talking to!"

"Yeah yeah yeah…" he waved her off, beginning to crash back down to reality. He got up and began to wander over towards his things. "Now where did I put Gama-chan?" The blond began to once more dig through his backpack in search of his faithful frog wallet, and Koyuki was none too pleased to be ignored.

"I'm not talking about money!" she hissed, slapping her face in exasperation. "Good grief, we aren't all misers. I'm talking about a bet, you moron!"

Naruto paused for a moment and regarded the woman he was assigned to protect with a critical eye. "I'm not a bet-taking type," he said slowly, "Last time I did, I had to walk around the whole village in my underwear with a sign that said I still sleep with a blanket…"

"Calm down," she said, rolling her eyes, "I'm not interested in seeing your underwear. I've seen far more of you than I was planning to today anyways." The blond raised a questioning eyebrow but didn't stop her, so she continued, "If you can complete this Rasen-whatever the heck you called it before you leave the Land of Snow, I'll consider finding a way to get you some signed merchandise."

Naruto didn't seem that convinced, but Koyuki could see the conflicting emotions storming in his eyes, and slowly but surely the one she was counting on won out, and he bounded over with a hopeful expression. "Alright, I'll take your bet…" he said, sticking his hand out, "…but only if we shake on it. What happens if I theoretically can't do it in time?"

The princess took his hand and gave it a firm shake. "Nothing at all," she said simply, surprising the teen. "I've just never come across a ninja quite like you who wasn't interested in kidnapping me for my money or stealing me away to knock me up." Despite Naruto's aghast expressions and objections, she continued, "Maybe you all aren't complete slime. The only ninja that I've known have been under the employ of my uncle, and I think we both know what type of man he is. This is the first time that I've been back in the Land of Snow proper in a number of years."

"People change, though," Naruto said almost immediately, "You can't be so quick to discount those in your village for something that your uncle was responsible for so long ago. You don't know that the Snow Ninjas haven't become more regular and even-keeled in that time."

"Maybe…" she murmured, but the blond could see the doubt lingering in her eyes briefly before she recomposed herself and glided back to the door. "Anyways, your teacher wants you to come down for lunch before we head out. Shall I wait…?"

"No, no, I'll be there in a second," Naruto said, almost wishing she would leave so he could process all of the information of the past few minutes. "My apologies for the holdup, Your Highness."

She nodded and slipped back into the hallway, and the teenager was left to contemplate his thoughts…

_**Fire Temple, a few hours later**_

"Welcome, your Highness," Keisei said graciously, walking forward to greet the leader of the Land of Birds and her two bodyguards. It was late in the afternoon, and the setting fall sun was just beginning to cast a pale orange glow on the surrounding area. The Sarutobi clan leader stood at the front entrance to the Fire Temple, and his team stood behind him, appraising the newly found leader and her traveling party. "It's good to see that you've made it here unharmed," he continued, "We were worried that something unfortunate had happened to you. Are you unharmed?"

The young ruler's eyes drifted from her newfound security aide to the huddle of people behind him. Shikamaru's eyes were narrowed as he looked at both her and her two attendants, and she couldn't help but be nervous at his intense questioning gaze. Ino and Chōji looked somewhat befuddled at her sudden appearance, hovering behind their teammate with anxious looks on their faces. Toki was relieved that Keisei, at the very least, looked pleased to see her and wasn't afraid or suspicious.

Behind the Leaf team, two different groups of people stood. One was a group of monks, including Sentoki and Bansai and led by Chiriku. They kept a polished veneer of stoic silence as they looked her way, hands clasped behind their backs. The other was less of a group and more of a pair. Asuma was well trained in the monks' art of imitating a statue, but his eyes held a hint of something else as they flickered from the Land of Birds party to the Leaf ninja. Next to him was a younger monk, notable in that he still had a healthy head of hair and didn't exactly follow the monks' stance of neutrality.

"No, we just ran into a slight problem," she said slowly, gesturing to one of her attendants. "My bodyguard here grew ill for a few days, and we were forced to make an unplanned stop to let him recover."

Keisei's expression turned surprised, and he quickly asked, "Oh, do you need one of the medics here to give him a checkup? We can make sure that there's nothing residual sticking around."

That got a reaction, as the indicated bodyguard immediately flinched and gained a strange look of both fright and aggression, immediately shoving a hand into his pocket, but Toki's arm flashed out and put a pause to that. "Forgive him, he's rather sensitive about his illness," she said quickly. "It's an ongoing thing, you see…"

"My apologies, your Highness," the Sarutobi leader replied, "But…there may be a problem…would you mind coming with us?"

She could feel the two flanking her tense up almost immediately, but there was little she could do or say with them standing there. "May I ask what this is about?" she murmured slowly, trying to keep up the forced charade. "I was under the impression that Lady Haruna was ready and we would get getting underway with the preliminary readings of the treaty relatively soon."

"Oh, we will don't worry," Keisei countered instantly, taking a step forward. "But…there's something we need to discuss. Something involving your relationship with these two men here…" Shikamaru discreetly pulled his arms up such that he had access to both hands in close proximity, and both Ino and Chōji tensed, as they could tell that the mood was beginning to grow sour. Neither the group of monks nor Asuma really seemed fazed, but the younger acolyte seemed somewhat anxious to get going on something.

Meanwhile, the two male bodyguards looked positively livid, and their hands were twitching in an obvious attempt to threaten and intimidate their interlocutors. It was obvious that Toki was quickly losing control of the situation, but in an effort to avoid violence she tried one more tactic. "I'm sure there's no need for anyone to get ruffled feathers, right? We're not here to cause any problems."

Keisei's face was now growing hard, as he too sensed the mood growing foul. "Do not fear, Lady Toki. We are not angry with you, nor do we have any sort of bone to pick with you." He gave her a quick conforming smile before turning his attention to the bodyguards. "No, we need to have a chat with these Grass ninja…"

Toki couldn't say a word, as one of the impersonators snatched her before she could do anything about it. As they leapt backwards, towards the ancient set of stairs, the other chose to drop her transformation, revealing a young woman. She was a few years older than the Leaf genin, and while her hair of the palest blue and bandana were rather striking, the remarkable resemblance of her eyes to the fabled Rinnegan was not lost on any of them. However, none of them had time to ponder that little problem, as her hands were flying through hand signs.

"Katon – Onidōrō (Fire Style – Demon Lantern)!" she hissed briefly before the air around her head and shoulders began to smolder with heat. The superheated air began to congeal into a number of red hot fireballs in the shape of heads, complete with the wrinkles of old men and burning yellow eyes. They didn't seem to harm or burn her at all, despite their close proximity, and an odd cackling emitted from their flaming jaws.

As they shot forward at a nonverbal command, the Leaf ninja took action, not wanting to lose sight of the one that had taken Toki. Keisei immediately sliced open his thumb with his tooth, smeared the blood on his palm, and flashed through some signs as he dropped to a knee. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Technique)!" he shouted, right before his palm impacted, and a cloud of smoke obscured his body. Undeterred, the ghastly orbs careened into the haze, expecting to impact their human target.

However, they encountered a very different beast, as a massive spinning pole immediately dispersed the fireballs before they had a chance to do any damage. A large monkey, decked out in battle armor and a Leaf headband, barreled forward towards the surprised Grass kunoichi. The black and yellow pole in his arms began to twirl once more, and he swung a complicated pattern as he leapt up and prepared to attack.

The girl quickly shook her head free of surprise and reacted by reaching for the sword holstered on her back shoulder. As she unsheathed it, the Leaf ninja could see that it was a short, ANBU-style tanto. Her face exhibited no real sense of fright as she made an effort to twist her body away from the impact zone.

"Enma, disarm and incapacitate!" Keisei shouted, noting the change in stance of their opponent.

"Not a problem!" the massive primate growled in confirmation, and he abruptly swung down as hard as he could on the girl's tanto, though her body really wasn't in the path. She grinned, seeming to think that the small, tempered blade would be enough to stop the attack. Likewise, Enma bared his teeth in anticipation.

The monkey turned out to be correct, as the staff smashed through the blade, its enchantments and construction no match for a mystical staff. The shock of losing her ANBU blade was enough to cause a lapse in concentration, and the momentum of the impact dragged her arm backwards in a painful manner, causing her to lose her balance.

Enma landed on all fours and quickly jabbed the staff towards her gut, expecting to land a breath-stealing blow or at the very least another stun, but the Grass ANBU wasn't an amateur. She turned the stumble into a tuck and roll and managed to avoid the jab and follow up slam into the ground. She hopped to her feet quickly, expecting the large primate to continue attacking as she pulled out a pair of kunai and brandished them in front of her defensively.

However, Keisei and his personal summon had other plans, as they surprised the girl by charging her and leaping past, obviously intending on pursuing the man who had absconded with Toki. "Hey, hold on!" she shrieked, not expecting the sudden change of plans while turning around abruptly in an attempt to follow after them. "Don't try to get away!"

"Sorry, lady, but that ain't going to happen." The mysterious Grass girl immediately felt her body go rigid as she lost all control of her limbs. She tried straining her arms and legs, and even her neck, to try to get away from the mysterious force that had captured her body, but that proved to be a mostly fruitless exercise.

"What did you do to me?" she demanded angrily, only managing to make her joints wobble very slightly.

"I told you, it ain't going to happen," Shikamaru replied, rolling his eyes in annoyance at having to repeat himself. He was on one knee, with his hands held in a familiar position as his teammates flanked him, not in defensive poses but not unaware of the possible danger. "Once my Kage Mane no Jutsu (Shadow Possession Technique) gets a hold of you, you don't have much of a chance. Just wish sensei and his monkey would have gotten out of the way faster." He briefly rose to his feet but only to fall back to the ground to sit cross-legged. "We're going to sit right here, and you're going to behave," he continued, smirking confidently. The girl could only sit there and snarl, so the Nara youth added one last statement, "Here, I'll let you see my friends here come over and stand guard over you for a second." He turned his head a third of the way around, and both Chōji and Ino walked over to assume their positions.

"You're not going anywhere," the blonde simpered, bending over and flicking her prisoner in the nose, eliciting another snarl.

"Now, now, let's not antagonize her," Chōji admonished his friend, plopping down in front of the young woman from Hidden Grass. He quickly flexed his hands, and they ballooned to the size of trash can lids. "We're not going to hurt you," he added, addressing the girl even though she couldn't really see him, "We just want to talk, that's all." He leaned back and supported himself with his enlarged palms.

Shikamaru noted that they were all in position and prepared to turn around so his neck wouldn't grow sore. However, his attention was captured by Keisei's older brother, looking at him rather intensely. The Nara teen raised an eyebrow, silently questioning what the former Leaf jōnin could possibly want, and their stare continued for almost twenty seconds. Then, Asuma almost imperceptibly nodded, turned, and walked back into the temple. The youth that had been standing with him scowled at the young genius and stomped over to join the monks, who were still there and didn't seem to have any intention of leaving.

Despite being confused, the de facto leader of the Ino-Shika-Chō trio turned back and continued his vigilance on their prisoner.

…xXx…

Keisei and Enma galloped down the side of the small mountain, taking the steps in bunches due to their haste. The thick forest cover didn't allow them much in the way of visibility, so both silently hoped that their assumed superior speed would be more than enough to catch up with the Grass kidnapper before he disappeared into the underbrush…if he hadn't already.

Luckily, as they arrived at the bottom of the massive stone staircase, it didn't seem that they had any cause to worry. The Grass ninja had dropped his disguise, revealing a young man dressed in similar clothes to his female companion, with a stern face and black hair tied up in a style similar to Shikamaru. He had dropped Toki on the ground nearby and was brandishing two kunai in defense…because the five members of Team 8 and the two missing bodyguards were standing in his way, not in a threatening position but not exactly looking to let him escape either. "Really?" Keisei whined, huffing heavily as he took a moment to catch his breath. "We had this under control!" Enma didn't look all that convinced but he chose to not say anything, instead just bending over and continuing to gasp for air.

"I'm sure you did, but I don't think you'll object to a little help," Shisui said lightly

"Well, no, but Enma and I were looking forward to actually doing something for once in a fight," he whined, unconsciously showing his connection to his son. "You get to have all the fun."

The Uchiha cousin rolled his eyes in amusement before turning his attention to the young man standing between them. "So…would you like to explain why you deemed it appropriate to kidnap the leader of an allied nation, to both our village _**and**_ yours, during the signing of a peace treaty that could benefit the Hidden Grass Village for years to come, both economically and in strength?"

The boy's face immediately went aghast, and he was quick to reply to the allegations. "Wait, hold on a second! What are you trying to imply? My partner and I were assigned to protect Lady Toki from the Leaf Village because they were going to force her into a treaty that would be unfavorable for Hidden Grass."

This certainly put a temporary stop to all aggressions, and while his team looked rather confused, Shisui's eyes merely narrowed, as did those of his Team 10 counterpart, and he pursued the subject further. "Okay, let's start from the beginning because it appears we have some sort of miscommunication here. Why don't you tell us what you were told, and we will stand down while you do and give our side of the story once you are done."

The Grass youth looked somewhat suspicious of this, but his stance softened slightly, and he dropped his hands to his side, though he kept the knives tightly grasped and didn't move from in front of Toki. "That's fine, but I'm going to keep my eye on all of you," he said slowly, swiveling his head back and forth to both groups of enemies. Both jōnin sensei nodded or waved their hands in agreement, though they similarly appear to want to let their guard down.

"Alright, now that we've got that out of the way…" the young ANBU agent said, "…let's try to figure out what the issue is here. I'll start with my orders. As you may be aware, I am…"

"…the son of the current leader of the Hidden Grass Village. Muku, isn't it?" Keisei asked, though he already knew the answer.

The long-haired youth didn't look too surprised that his thin cover had been blown. "That is correct," he said, maintaining an air of neutrality while keeping his face stoic. "My partner, Ryūzetsu, and I…

"…he means girlfriend, guaranteed…" Kiba hissed loud enough for everyone to hear.

Muku continued like he hadn't heard a thing, though his flushed cheeks betrayed him, "…were assigned by my father to travel to the site of this treaty meeting between Lady Haruna and Lady Toki in order to provide opinions and insight into how we, meaning all three of our countries, could further work this into a massive agreement that would be beneficial to all of our countries as well as our mutual allies amongst the major ninja villages."

Both Leaf jōnin looked relatively in agreement about that. "That was our understanding as well, though we believed that the involvement of the Hidden Grass Village would have been after this first treaty had been put into place," Shisui replied, checking with Keisei to make sure that his information had been correct. "After the Lands of Vegetables and Birds united, they were to approach the Land of Forests with the hopes that the promise of economic growth and extra manpower from the Flower Ninja Clan would be enough to create a new alliance."

"You are essentially right," Muku nodded, "though there has been some resistance among some of the leadership in our village to pursuing that angle because of their desire to keep a veneer of…independence."

Keisei caught the hitch in his tone and carefully added, "Meaning…some members of the older part of your village are still somewhat sensitive about what happened in previous world wars, right?"

Mui's son shrugged, not seeming that disturbed about it. "I'm not going to deny it, if you're trying to tread carefully, and I don't blame anything on your village. Not many do if they're relatively competent about the reason why Hidden Grass turned into a war-torn battlefield, but there are a number of stubborn old councilmen that refuse to move on from that point of view. We're just fine as a village economically and politically but the alliance would give us a measure of credibility in the world."

Shino became the first of the genin to pipe up and add to the conversation. "That doesn't explain why that involves attacking us," he said softly, neither accusatory nor confused but rather just questioning. "Was there some sort of disconnect in your orders?"

"Yes, it appears that way now that we're standing here, about to rip each other's throats out in a peaceful manner," Muku replied dryly, shrugging in apparent disinterest. "Our original orders were just to observe and report, and if we ran into any outside parties, like yourself, we were to explain the reasoning behind our presence at these meetings…"

…xXx…

"…However, on our way here, we received orders to scrap what we had originally been told and to work under the assumption that any outside parties present at the signing of the treaty were to be considered hostile," Ryūzetsu explained to the genin of Team 10. As she had begun to give them an idea of what her side of the story was, they had allowed her to turn around and face them, though she was still flanked by both Ino and Chōji, and Shikamaru was still restraining her with his Nara clan technique.

"How did you get from protecting the daimyo to kidnapping one of them?" the blonde young woman asked in curiosity. "That seems like a pretty large jump in logic, doesn't it?"

The silver haired ANBU trainee nodded as much as her restrictive bindings would allow. "I don't disagree with you one bit, so let me explain the other note we received en route a few days ago. May I?" She directed her question towards Shikamaru, and after he received relative confirmation from both of his teammates, he loosened his chakra hold on her enough for her to move her arm and extract a number of papers from one of her hip pouches.

"Are those…?" the large Akimichi began to ask, and Ryūzetsu nodded in confirmation.

"These are the orders we received," she explained, holding them up for someone to take. Ino obliged, partly out of curiosity but mostly because she was the most observant member of their team when it came to details and documents. As she began to read over them, her eyebrows knitted, and the Grass ANBU explained the reasoning behind it. "As I'm sure your friend here is beginning to realize, someone went to a lot of trouble to try to get us to do something that wasn't a part of our mission. It takes a decently trained eye to see, but someone tried to imitate the seal that Muku's father uses on official documents."

"How did you figure this out?" Ino asked, handing back the documents. "I wouldn't have noticed a problem if you hadn't mentioned it. They look the same to me."

Ryūzetsu nodded as she slowly put the missives back in her pocket. "And they are, for all intents and purposes. The paper, the writing style, even the handwriting are identical, but Muku found it odd that we received a second order so soon after the first. When we looked more carefully, we saw that there were minute differences that Lord Mui wouldn't have left in his own letters."

"Why follow the orders, then?" Chōji piped up. "Couldn't your friend just contact his father and confirm which is right and which is wrong?"

The Grass ANBU trainee shrugged as best as she could. "You have a point, but Muku thought it might be prudent to play out both sets as best as we could. After thinking about it, we decided to continue our monitoring mission, but to accompany Toki to the meeting as an extra layer of protection." She then smiled ruefully. "Unfortunately, her bodyguards didn't see things the same way that we did, and you know the rest."

Shikamaru looked thoughtful as he considered all of the information. His eyes caught sight of some movement, and he recognized his sensei and his personal summon, as well as Lady Toki and the Grass leader's son, with only a slight sliver of surprise at the presence of Team 8 and Toki's two companions. "Well, sensei, what are your thoughts on all of this?" he drawled, though his own opinions were betrayed as soon as his shadow withdrew back to its normal position.

"There's something odd happening in Grass; that much is very apparent," Keisei replied, and both Muku and Shisui nodded their agreement at that. "However, I see no reason to stop the proceedings. An extra set of eyes can't hurt, right? As long as the owners of those eyes behave themselves."

The ponytailed Grass youth smirked in acknowledgement and quipped, "As long as your eyes and brains stay focused on the mission, I think we're both fine with that." He then turned to the leader of the Land of Birds and attempted to put on his most apologetic face. "Lady Toki, I would like to sincerely apologize for any distress we may have…"

She immediately held a hand up and put a stop to that. "I understand orders, but this is out of line, my dearest Muku," she hissed, stomping over and getting up in his space, though the effect was minimized by the severe height difference. She stuck a finger in his face, and his training was slightly disturbed by that. "But we'll talk about that later…your girlfriend is who I'm really mad at." She abruptly turned on her heel and stomped over to Ryūzetsu, who looked more than a little terrified. "You, my wonderful cousin, have a lot to explain…"

"Oh, I have no doubt about that…" she laughed nervously, "But can we do that later? Maybe in private?"

Toki's eyes narrowed, and for a moment everyone thought she was going to attack her relative, but the sudden appearance by Haruna and her bodyguards quickly put a stop to that. "Toki, what's going on out here?" she asked as they exited the temple. "Is everything alright?"

The Land of Birds daimyo quickly put on a placating face, though the more observant ninja could see her mutter, "We'll talk about this later…" before nearly floating over to her Land of Vegetables counterpart. "Nothing's wrong, my friend," she said sweetly, taking Haruna's hands. "We were just sorting out some new arrivals from the Hidden Grass Village who were to observe our meetings in preparation for a new treaty."

Haruna didn't look convinced but she allowed her new friend to lead her back into the temple, though she herself shot a look behind her at the Leaf ninja that demanded further explanation. As the doors swung shut behind them, the two Grass ninja ran to each other and hugged very briefly, dropping the veil of professionalism for a moment before hurrying after the daimyo. As the genin of Team 8 went to talk with Team 10, Keisei and Shisui exchanged a look of confusion but followed after their foreign associates, the former dismissing Enma with a note of thanks as they passed by the genin.

Of course, all of the males had only one thought running through their minds. "Females…so troublesome…"

_**A few hours later, conference room of the Land of Snow hotel**_

"…so that's what we've got scheduled for the next couple of days," the _Princess Gale_ actress finished, taking a seat and a deep breath. She tapped a number of keys on the keyboard in front of her, and the tentative outline of filming that she had pirated from the director winked away as the projector in the conference room clicked off. "Do you have any questions?" she asked, directing it at the four Leaf ninja. "I know that was a lot of information to take in at once."

Kakashi looked rather indifferent to the whole thing, as did Sasuke and Sakura. Naruto, predictably, was rather enthused just by seeing all of the plans for the movie ahead of anyone in the general public and was bouncing up and down in his seat. "I think everything looks good, your Highness," the disinterested jōnin said lightly. "Your security and production team have done quite the admirable job at putting together a solid agenda."

The princess nodded in acknowledgement. "That means a lot coming from a prestigious ninja such as yourself," she said quickly, "We, meaning myself and Airi…" motioning to her secretary who was standing nearby, "…were hoping that this meeting wasn't going to take a long time or cause any undue stress for any of us. I'm glad to see that we were right."

Kakashi's lone eye appraised both of the Land of Snow women, and unnoticed to anyone but the heir of the Sharingan his eye lingered on the pink-haired assistant, who was quick to notice the scrutiny and began to quail under his gaze. He held the look for a few moments before finally acquiescing and rising to his feet. "Very good," he said lightly, motioning for the rest of his team to rise as well. "If there's nothing else, shall we be on our way to dinner?"

Koyuki didn't object and instead stood as well and led them to the door, where they would exit and head next door to where a large buffet spread was set up for their enjoyment. She opened the door and allowed them to shuffle through, noting that Kakashi gave her a pleasant grin and that the two genin not named Naruto were chatting amicably about something that sounded like plans for a training session later on involving…was that genjutsu?

However, Naruto stopped right in front of her, grinning smugly, and when he didn't immediately say anything, she was forced to ask. "Okay, what is it?" she sighed, somewhat annoyed and somewhat impressed by his persistence. "Don't you want to eat?"

The blond shrugged, and without saying a word, he extracted a rubber ball from his pocket. She raised an eyebrow but didn't seem to be too concerned about any progress; after all, they had just talked about the concept this morning, and they had been out at the filming set all day. Of course, she hadn't been paying too much attention to the ninja, but from what she had seen they were doing their job all day.

A loud bursting noise snapped her out of her train of thought, and her eyes immediately caught sight of tiny rubber fragments fluttering to the ground, much different from the small holes in all of the balls that she had seen in his room earlier today. Such was her amazement was that she almost missed the taunting message he left with her as the young Uzumaki sauntered out of the room. "Autograph and picture, here I come…"

The royal descendent of the Land of Snow shook her head free of cobwebs, actually somewhat amused by his persistence and dedication to the admittedly childish bet. She made to leave the room but noticed that her assistant had not yet departed. "Airi, are you coming?" she asked in confusion.

The pink-haired girl looked startled and quickly shook her head in the negative. "No, no, I need to make a phone call," she said apologetically, holding up her cell as proof. "I want to be sure that all of our parties are on the same page. You go on ahead, Your Highness. I'll be along shortly." Koyuki looked a little confused but nodded her agreement and let the door slide closed behind her.

As soon as she heard the click of the lock, Fubuki dropped her innocent façade and hit the '1' key on her phone. After a few rings, she heard the gruff tones of her superior on the other end, and she quickly responded, "The plans are all set and in motion. We strike in two days…"

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned!

**Review Responses:**

**jcampbellohten: **This isn't actually a canon mission. It's the first movie released if you're interested. Actually none of these missions are canon. You're starting to diverge a little with your guesses. Most everything you say is relatively close to a fragment of my vision, but time travel isn't. That kind of story isn't up my alley haha.


	29. (Exam Interlude 9) Chapter 27

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, including in this chapter, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Kazahana Dōto revealed his location, in a cave overlooking the _Princess Gale_ movie set. His conversation with his niece's personal secretary, Airi aka Kokuyaku Fubuki, gave him insight into the identities of his future enemies, and while he was somewhat dismayed by the prospects of having to deal with Hatake Kakashi a second time, as well as two of the most powerful genin in the Hidden Leaf Village, he was still confident in his team's ability to fulfill their mission. Meanwhile, Koyuki set up an afternoon meeting with the ninja to discuss the protection plans for the rest of the week. Along the way, she made a bet with Naruto after helping him figure out the second step of the Rasengan training, though she was dismayed that he had been able to complete it during the day's filming without even practicing. This meeting also allowed Fubuki to inform her leader about when to strike. Elsewhere, Toki finally showed up, and Keisei forced her faux bodyguards to reveal themselves as the trainee Grass ANBU Muku and Ryūzetsu. With the help of new arrivals in the form of Team 8, they neutralized them with minimal effort and found out that someone had been sabotaging the Grass ninjas' orders, which led them to hybridize the orders in order to try to establish what had been going on. With a tentative agreement in place, both sides agreed to allow the treaty negotiations and signing to proceed.

**AN:** My apologies for Koyuki being the queen of awkward. I didn't exactly mean it to come out that way, but it definitely did upon further consideration. However, I actually somewhat like the end result. It fits with her reluctance to open up to other people, so I'm going to leave it as is.

**(Exam Interlude) Chapter 27 – The Bandit Ambush! Dōto vs. Team 7!**

_A few days later, on the way to the filming site_

"…and there you have it," Sasuke explained, pointing to a few aspects on the scroll in front of him. Next to him on the bench, Sakura nodded thoughtfully, deeply engrossed in the various aspects of the advanced genjutsu concepts in front of her.

"You certainly have a way with words…" she murmured, the previously difficult parts of her father's genjutsu beginning to mesh together in her mind. "I know I could have understood this, but it would have taken me weeks or months to get there."

The Uchiha teen shrugged nonchalantly, though inside he was strangely pleased. "I'm not sure it would have taken that long, but still, your dad wrote these in an especially tricky format. Only someone with a high level of proficiency in genjutsu would be able to understand this at first blush. The fact that you were able to do as much as you did is commendable."

Sakura flushed slightly but took the compliment for what it was. "Thank you, but you and your clan just have an inherent gift for this type of stuff that most of us can only dream of…"

His eyes never left the sheet as he nodded in acknowledgement, and as he continued to scan the words and diagrams, his expression tightened. "Thanks for that, but I'm not sure I'm as much of a genius as you make me out to be. Your dad left some vexing clues in here. Like this…" he trailed off as he looked at a few specific diagrams. "…do you know if these were meant to be used as ninjutsu?"

Sakura looked baffled by that. "Ninjutsu? What do you mean?"

"Yeah, take a look at this." He pointed to a number of notes under each of the illusionary techniques, and the pinkette looked closer. Sure enough, there were some thinly veiled references to a number of plant-derived techniques, with even a few mentions of the First Hokage's Mokuton (Wood Release) scattered around. That certainly was odd. "Did your parents have any partners, or was one of them primarily a ninjutsu user?" he asked, trying to rack his admittedly incomplete memory of the elder ninja of the Hidden Leaf Village.

"Not that I'm aware of…" Sakura replied, though the way she trailed off indicated that even she wasn't sure. "They don't really talk about what their jobs used to be as ninja. All I know is that they were great at using the image and likeness of plants. I just always assumed that to mean that they were good at replicating them through genjutsu…"

Sasuke shrugged. "Maybe this was just an idea of theirs, something that they wished to implement but never truly could because of a lack of skill in higher level plant and wood ninjutsu. Might be worth asking them when we get home." He took the scroll from her hands, missing the blush that flushed her cheeks when their palms brushed, and stashed it. "Regardless, I think you've got a pretty good handle on the basics and even an excellent start on some of the more difficult techniques. Now you just need to try them out…"

A loud groan from the bench ahead of them caught their attention, and both looked up and saw the rather green visage of their sensei as he tried and mostly failed to rise from the bench. Naruto was nowhere to be found, likely in the other car next door begging for anything spherical seeing as he had already exhausted his supply of plastic balls. "Let's not try any sort of ninja techniques, okay, real or illusionary?" the sickly teacher groaned, finally making it to the aisle of the train. "I'm going to head to the bathroom for a few minutes to…settle my stomach. Call me when we get to the filming site."

As he staggered away, Sasuke raised an eyebrow in question. "I am not calling anyone while they're on the toilet."

Sakura rolled her eyes and nodded in agreement. "He can look out the window and feel the train stop like the rest of us," she added, jerking her thumb to the right as the bare trees and snow covered hills flew by.

"Who's calling who on the toilet?" a voice over their shoulder asked. Both genin looked up and saw Kazahana Koyuki giving them a look filled with confusion and no little amount of disgust. At that sight, both couldn't help it and released a few giggles and snorts at her expense. "What's so funny?" she pressed them, beginning to look a little peeved.

"Our apologies, your Highness," Sasuke chuckled, "We just thought the same thing that you did." He gestured down the aisle, where the door to the bathroom was just being slammed shut by a sickly body. "Apparently Kakashi isn't the biggest fan of trains. He's got a bad case of motion sickness."

"Oh…" Obviously that hadn't crossed her mind at all. "Well…regardless, I was interested in going to see if there was any coffee in the other car, and seeing as your teacher is otherwise…indisposed…" Her face screwed up in disgust at the mere thought of what may be going down in the bathroom. "…would one of you mind accompanying me there?"

Before either of the two genin could say a word, and Sasuke looked like he was willing to help out, the secretary of the princess-turned-actress appeared out of nowhere at her employer's shoulder, startling all three of them. "I would be happy to accompany you if you would like, Ms. Yukie?" Airi said sweetly, smiling up at the slightly taller woman.

"Oh, that would be wonderful," Koyuki sighed in relief. "Thank you so much, Airi." Then she caught herself and looked back at the ninja. "That is okay, right?" she asked tentatively, her eyes flashing back and forth between the two.

Sakura didn't seem to have an objection, but the Uchiha genius took a moment before answering, his gaze solely on the secretary. "No, that should be alright…" he said slowly. "We'll be right here if you need anything." He just barely caught the faintest glimpse of irritation flash across Airi's face before she was back to her apparent normally bubbly self.

"Not at all! I just need to grab something from my bag really fast. You can go on ahead, I'll be right with you." The celebrity nodded and began walking to the first of the three cars on the train, where the engine and control rooms were housed. She threw a somewhat sincere word of thanks over her shoulder before disappearing behind a door that led to the connector.

Sasuke watched as the pink haired assistant traipsed over to where her belongings were and extracted a thin cylindrical tube resembling lipstick from her purse. That alone wasn't suspicious, but the way she began to titter with two other assistants who happened to appear out of the blue certainly caught his attention. Her face turned serious and borderline malicious, and after a few seconds of hushed muttering, she sent them on their way and ran after her employer. "There's something odd with that one," he murmured, almost to himself, though Sakura's ears caught what he said as well.

"What do you mean?" she asked, craning her neck to try to catch what he was looking at and talking about.

"That secretary…I noticed it the other day too, at lunch…" he said quietly, trying not to bring on any unwanted attention as he slowly stood under the auspices of stretching out. "She was talking with those two people the other day, at lunch, when we got here, and I've seen her with them a number of other times on the film set as well."

Sakura had to duck her head down as they rudely brushed by Sasuke, not bothering to apologize for nearly knocking him down, and she watched as the brutish one took up sentry at the bathroom door, while the thinner, more weasel-like one went into the final car, where the other half of the crew and actors were traveling. "I can try something discreet, if you want to check them with your Sharingan…" she hissed once they were out of earshot.

The Uchiha youth nodded as his eyes flashed red, while the pink-haired girl discreetly began flashing through hand signs. The young man swiveled his head around and looked at the two men. While his eyes weren't anywhere near the level of the Byakugan in terms of assessing the size of one's chakra pool, he was still able to spot the telltale signs of a trained ninja in their movements as well as the faint glimmer of a Henge no Jutsu (Tranformation Technique) applied over their being. They were no amateurs, as the glamour only barely changed their appearance such that someone familiar with them would be able to recognize them, but a passing acquaintance wouldn't have a clue. Still, it was enough to indicate that something was severely wrong with the situation. 

He quickly turned on his heel, a curse emanating from his lips, and he saw similar traits in the secretary, who waved sweetly to her employer before slamming the door shut in her face and locking it. Her form shimmered as she turned to smirk at Sasuke, and her smart dress dissolved into the normal garb of a ninja of the Hidden Snow Village, complete with a bandana-style headband that had tufts of her hair poking through it. "You're too late, sweetheart," she cackled as her hand lifted up, showing both him and the now standing Sakura that the lipstick tube was in actuality a detonator, right before her finger compressed the button, and everything went black…

…xXx…

Naruto was already having a somewhat subpar day. He had awoken looking forward to being involved in the final day of shooting for the _Princess Gale_ movie, and Koyuki had assured them that this would be the final day that their services would be required. He had already made significant progress on his Rasengan training, and he felt that there was little to stand in the way of him obtaining the coveted autograph and photo from the cautious actress by the end of the day.

However, he had begun to run into a couple of problems, and it seemed like fate was having a good laugh at his expense.

Because of his ease in accomplishing the first two steps of the process, and because the more onerous of the two was performed in the village, he had never really run into the issue of a lack of supplies. The young blond had thought that he had prevented that from being an issue on this trip, having packed a scroll filled with more than enough practice tools. However, it seemed that someone of a higher power wasn't interested in him doing as he pleased that day, as he had left the scroll in the room on accident, and his supply of balloons on hand had dwindled to nearly none.

Additionally, the matter of the train didn't help. He wasn't anywhere near the level of his sensei in terms of nausea, but he had to admit that he wasn't the biggest fan of trains. That made his mission much more difficult, as he was having to go from person to person, trying to find someone in the prop department who might know where some balloons might be found.

From the security check that he'd done with his team as they boarded, he knew that the second and third cars were full of actors, producers, or people way too low on the ladder to know anything helpful. So he did the only thing that he could think of as he headed for the one location that might be of use – he became a massive pest.

He traipsed into the first car that shared space with the engine and cockpit, shooting a vague note over his shoulder to his teammates that he would be back in a little bit. They looked rather pleased actually; Sasuke and Sakura were beginning to get annoyed with the random blasts of air from his failed completion attempts. On the other hand, Kakashi looked somewhat forlorn, and Naruto wondered if the air was actually smoothing to his nauseous countenance.

Regardless, he left them and went to search for some prop managers, or whoever he could get to talk to him. The first person he ran across, he couldn't see who he was because he was seated facing forward. That turned out to be a problem because it was Kendaru Yuika, and he immediately began to leer at the young blond dangerously. Needless to say, Naruto quickly moved on.

The next two people were actually just stunt doubles looking for a cup of coffee, and the woman shook her head while the man shrugged and offered an apology. The same was true with an FX assistant, a videographer, and the director's assistant, who Naruto suspected was sent by the weirdo himself.

Finally, he found an underling in the prop department, who didn't know much but did have a bag of balloons in his pocket. He also indicated that he should talk to the elder looking gentleman near the door to the cockpit. That individual turned out to be Asama Sandayū, and he was more than happy to help the young man. Unfortunately, his advice directed him back to the end car, where there were boxes of balloons used to support some lightweight props in the air.

As he happily made his way to the car connector, blowing up a balloon as he went, Naruto spotted the princess making her way towards him. Quickly tying up the balloon, he hustled over and opened the door for her. "Oh, Naruto!" Koyuki said, sounding surprised. "I didn't know you were over here."

The teen held up the balloon and bag in his right hand and smirked confidently. "Oh yeah! Just looking for supplies so I can win our little bet."

The actress rolled her eyes and brushed by, making a beeline for the makeshift coffee station. "I'm sure you are…" she muttered under her breath, shuffling aside as she poured a cup and began to add some cream to it.

Once she was done, she turned around and rolled her eyes. He was standing here, nearly bouncing on his feet, so she sighed and waved at him. "Okay, fine, let's see how you're doing…" the stiff daimyo added.

That's all the blond needed, as he began to funnel his chakra into the ball, trying to create a perfect mixture of stable rotational and kinetic energy. As his companion watched, his face began to look bright, and she knew he was making steady progress. He was holding the balloon steady, and it wasn't rippling nearly as much as it had been the past few days. (Yes, she had been spying on him when she had a moment, but she would refuse to admit it if confronted with that information.)

However, it was not meant to last, as the familiar ripples rapidly began to bubble across the surface. The blond's face scrunched up in concentration, trying to sustain the effort, but he was fighting a losing battle, and the ripples bulged, pushing at the strains of the thin plastic. Finally, when it could take no more, the polymer gave way and released the chakra in a quick burst.

_**BOOM**_

The car shook, and a number of standing individuals were forced to try to keep their balance. Naruto ignored the shreds of the balloon and grabbed Koyuki, who somehow managed to steady her coffee and only spill a few drops. "Did you do that?" she asked hysterically, looking around in fear.

"No way!" he denied almost immediately. "That wasn't me!" "_At least I hope it wasn't…Kurama, was that you?_"

The giant fox sighed in annoyance. "**Look behind you, moron.**" Naruto did as he said, and his jaw dropped as he saw the other two cars fall off the tracks in a sparking, smoking mass of metal right before the car they were on zipped around a curve. The train was now noticeably faster, and if he didn't know any better, Naruto would guess that it was approaching a dangerous speed given the twisting track through the mountainous region. "**I'd be on alert if I were you…**" the chakra construct muttered before retreating back to his chamber.

"Your Highness, we may have a problem…" he began to say, but he was abruptly cut off as she began to slump in his arms.

"Wassgoin' on?" she slurred. Her eyes began to droop, and this time, she did lose hold on her coffee cup, and it clattered to the ground, its contents spilling on the cheaply carpeted floor. "Why am I so…schleepy…?" Her voice trailed off as she fell into unconsciousness, and Naruto was instantly on alert, as a number of other thumps indicated that the other occupants of the train were experiencing a similar sensation. He tried to summon up the energy to cover himself in a cloak of demonic chakra, but tiny little snowflakes began to dance in front of his eyes, and he was too late to avoid his own eyes beginning to droop…

…xXx…

Sasuke jerked awake, as a particularly loud scream of either pain or fear stabbed through his ears. He slowly pulled his head off the floor of the train and began to look around, thankful that the slight moment that he had been knocked out hadn't deactivated his Sharingan. He immediately noticed that the train, while derailed, was still standing upright, though the eerie creaking of the damaged car and the occasional sparking of damaged electrical equipment didn't bode very well.

Twisting his head towards where the engine car had been, he could see the feet of the Snow kunoichi approaching him quickly. The Uchiha youth put his head back down and looked back to where Sakura had been as she passed by, and he was glad to note that she was still in her seat, unharmed outside of a somewhat nasty gash on her right arm. "Sakura…" he hissed once the traitor had passed and begun a conversation with the brute standing outside the bathroom. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah," was the quick reply, and she cracked open her left eye to look down at him. She hissed in some slight pain but stowed that away in favor of subtly shifting into a position that she could look at him more directly. "Are you okay?" she asked softly.

"As well as I can be, given that the train just blew up," he muttered ruefully. "You?"

She tried moving her damaged arm and was moderately satisfied with what she felt. "Hurt but not too badly. My genjutsu's still in play too, if you think we can make a move."

He nodded carefully, impressed that she was able to get it off in time, though the sound of footsteps indicated another problem. "Maybe, but we may not have time for that…"

"Get up!" He was interrupted by the pink haired girl, who jerked him to his feet such that he was now looking away from her. "Get your little girlfriend and go stand over there!" she snapped, pointing at the mangled remains of the connector between the car they were currently in and the already disappeared engine car. Not in the mood nor interested in antagonizing them in fear of losing intel, he obeyed and helped Sakura to her feet before they shuffled to the back of the car. "Alright, now listen up!" she screeched, "This train is now under the control of Kazahana Dotō and his faithful servants! If you don't wish to die a very ugly death, I would advice all civilians to get your asses into the back car. We have business to take care of with these ninja here." The actors, producers, and assistants, not interested in getting on the wrong side of the former Snow ninja, quickly got up and began to hustle to the other car, brushing past the guard of that car as he returned to meet with his accomplices.

"So, what do we have here? A couple of genin up creek without a paddle?" he asked, slowly pulling out a kunai and tossing it between his hands casually with a sick look of joy on his face. "What to do, what to do? They're of no use to us, and they'll just get in our way if we don't do something about them."

"Maybe, but we might be able to use them if Boss has some problems on his end…" the girl pondered, raking her eyes over Sasuke in particular, her apparent lust overriding her job to keep them occupied. However, the latter began to prevail once a simple fact leaked through her mind. "Wait a second, there's something off here… We _are_ missing two of them."

The man with the thin eyes gave her an odd look and then realized what she was talking about. "You're right…" he said slowly. "Where's the loudmouth and Hatake Kakashi?"

Sasuke and Sakura were doing everything in their power to not give away the position of their sensei, but the Uchiha youth couldn't help but note that the door to the bathroom was beginning to open slowly, and he smirked under the auspices of a cough. "You ready to make a move?" he whispered, surreptitiously drawing her attention to that as well. She took a moment but noticed as well, nodding her confirmation as she began to work the chakra in the air.

"Hey, if you wanted to know where our old prevent of a sensei is, all you had to do was ask!" Sasuke spoke up, catching their attention and noticing that the door frantically closed in response.

The third member of the traitorous Snow ninja squad, the lumbering oaf who had a snowboard-like contraption on his back, giggled dumbly. "This moron thinks we're going to fall for that," he spat out slowly. He moved such that his massive body was standing directly in front of the bathroom door, a few steps behind his teammates.

"Now, now, Mizore, let's not get too ahead of ourselves," the smooth talking tall man said, turning to face his hulking squadmate; the pink-haired girl did as well with a sour look on her face. "Let's hear out the little runts. They may be smarter than they look."

The man called Mizore snarled in disgust at being looked down upon, but his expression quickly turned sour as he looked away for only a second. "Hey…where'd they go?" he asked, pointing down the car. The other two quickly spun around, but the teenagers had disappeared, and in their place a cloud of cherry blossom petals began to blow around them.

"These little fools," the tall man muttered before speaking up, "Think you can beat us with some academy level genjutsu, do you? Think again!" He and his female counterpart both raised their hands and blasted chakra out of their bodies, but to their surprise, only a few petals disappeared. "What the…try again, Fubuki!" he shouted, once more gathering his energy and expelling it.

Of course, that didn't seem to do the trick either, and from the look of annoyance on her face, the girl named Fubuki wasn't having much success either. "Fine…Mizore, you stay here and monitor the exit. Don't let anything past you! We'll clear out the car."

"Speak for yourself, Nadare," the pink haired villainess snapped. "I have a way to take care of this." She began to weave handseals, and the temperature of the car began to drop significantly as she forcibly removed the heat from the air.

The tall man rolled his eyes but nevertheless looked down the hallway and noted that while some of the petals were not disappearing, others were beginning to crust with frost and drop from the air with dull thumps. "Aha…mixing in a little truth with your lies…" he said softly. "These kids are pretty smart…exactly what I'd expect from the teachings of Hatake Kakashi." He began to move forward with his kunai bared in front of him, but the feeling of a similar knife at his throat immediately halted his progress.

"You're much nicer than I remember…Rōga Nadare…" the bored tones of the gray-haired jōnin echoed in his prey's ear. "Care to share why your opinion of me has changed so much?"

Despite the situation, as he could see now that Sasuke and Sakura had left their illusion and contained Fubuki, whose face was contorted into a nasty scowl, he chuckled at the irony. "Last I remember, I was never afraid of being complimentary to people who were at a skill level comparable to me." Not seeming too afraid of any retaliation, the Snow renegade pushed the kunai away with his hand and turned around to face his opponent, noting with a mixture of annoyance and amusement Mizore's limp body lying by the bathroom. "You're looking a little pale there, Kakashi," he noted with some level of glee as the jōnin stashed his kunai away and put his hands in his pockets. "Need some water before we start?"

The Leaf team leader shrugged indifferently. "Your bunch stopping the train was the best cure I could have had. Thanks for that, by the way."

Nadare chuckled at the irony. "Well, then…shall we?" His limbs tensed slightly before he disappeared in a rush of snow. Similarly, Fubuki elbowed Sakura in the gut and kicked Sasuke back a few steps before escaping in a similar fashion.

The genin made to follow, but Kakashi's voice made them halt. "Where's Naruto?" he asked sharply, looking around and craning his neck to see if he was in the 'prisoner' car. "And the princess?"

"They were both in the first car," Sasuke said, looking at the empty space where the car had been a few minutes earlier.

That seemed to irritate or startle Kakashi slightly. "What do you mean? Did the Snow ninja know that?"

Both genin nodded, and Sakura added, "They seemed to want it that way, at least when it came to Princess Koyuki. The pink haired one that was masquerading as her assistant went to great lengths to make sure she was in that car before blowing the connector."

"That's not good," Kakashi muttered, "That means that Kazahana Dotō wanted it that way, and it also means that he's either waiting at the movie set, or he was already on the train when we boarded at the hotel…"

…xXx…

Naruto was really starting to get annoyed with this day. First he had the nonsense with the balloons after making so much progress in the previous days on the Rasengan. Then, the train had the gall to blow up on him and separate him from his team.

…okay someone else blew the train up, but he was on a roll.

Then, after all of that, someone gassed the car that he was on, and he was on the verge of passing out. Luckily, he did have the foresight to creep a hand into his hip pouch and extract a medical mask, which he slowly managed to put on Koyuki's face before she had breathed too much. Then, because he really didn't have much else that he could do, he succumbed to the haze of the gas.

However, he wasn't out for very long, as a number of things happened within the next few minutes. First, a few miles down the road, the lurching of the train as its brakes were activated jerked the young jinchūriki awake, and he groggily noted that the gas was ceasing to emanate from the vents. "_Thanks for the assist, Kurama_…" he muttered mentally, and he heard a growl of confirmation and again something about being more careful in reply. He unconsciously did the same as Sasuke before and slowly cracked his eyes to take in his surroundings.

None of the other people on the car seemed to be awake, but Koyuki was beginning to move and groan a little. He began to move further and hissed in annoyance as his motions dragged a leg through the remains of his client's coffee. He immediately shut up when the door to the cockpit hissed open, and when his eyes caught a hold of the man who coolly strode out, he had no choice but to leap to his feet. Though it was more of a staggering lift than anything else.

"You're a brave one, boy," Kazahana Dotō growled, cracking a predatory grin as he stopped a few steps away, his arms crossed in a threatening pose. "You know things are hopeless but you still attempt to complete your mission. Admirable…but futile."

"You can stick it where the sun don't shine, you piece of crap," the blond snapped back, though he could tell that the gas was still somewhat affecting him because of the slight wobbling of his legs. Still, he wasn't about to let the devious uncle get away with his plans. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Technique)!" Four more Narutos poofed to life behind him in a protective formation around Koyuki, while the original began to stalk towards Dotō, who merely raised an eyebrow in questioning.

"Ah, yes, you must be the spawn of the Fourth Hokage…" he murmured, even as he lapsed into a defensive posture. "I've heard about you. Hits hard, fast, and unpredictably, and isn't afraid to use the power of the Nine Tailed Fox if necessary." His grin widened into a sneer. "I'm looking forward to taking you down a few notches."

"You took the words right out of my mouth," Naruto snarled, right as he dropped onto all fours and leapt forward, with a three tailed cloak sprouting to life around him. "Fūton – Reppūken (Wind Style – Gale Fist)!" he added as he punched hard at the elder man's gut. The older man could only grin as the fist of air hit him dead on and sent him flying through the wall of the train into the snowy mountainside, with the jinchūriki following close behind…

…xXx…

"Hyōton – Rōga Nadare no Jutsu (Ice Style – Wolf Fang Avalanche Technique)!" twin voices shouted in stereo, and mirrored masses of slamming snow barreled down the mountain, transforming into packs of wolves as they neared their respective targets. As the counterfeit canines began to rip into the snowy hides of their enemies, Kakashi and Nadare zipped around the battlefield, clashing kunai to kunai amongst the pack and above the water of the icy lake nearby.

"Having some trouble there, Rōga?" the Copy Ninja drawled offhandedly, kicking the arm of his opponent away and taking advantage of the stun to leap back a few steps for a quick catching of his breath. "Seems like you haven't gotten much better since we last fought."

"That depends," the traitorous Snow ninja replied, not looking ruffled in the least. "Did you finally learn to not run from your problems? Is that why you knocked out Mizore and left Fubuki to your little brats? Feel more comfortable in a one-on-one setting?"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, not rising to the taunts of his opponent, though inside he was well aware of his perceived cowardice many years prior. He didn't regret a thing about his actions – Koyuki was saved, and the Snow ninja were outed as rebels. So, he decided to fight fire with fire…or snow with snow in this case. "You're not going to get anywhere by taunting me over issues of youth and immaturity. At least I'm not trying to be something I'm not…you Kōsetsu wannabe."

That certainly got the traitor's attention. "…what did you say?" he said in a dangerous low tone.

Too late, Kakashi was on a roll. "Yeah, you and the rest of the Hidden Snow Village think you're the next coming of the Kōsetsu clan, but you're nothing but a bunch of posers. It's quite pathetic, actually."

"I'll have you know that the entirety of the Snow ninja are descendants of the legendary Kōsetsu clan," Nadare spat violently, charging forward and missing with a swipe of his kunai. "We were chosen by Lord Kazahana for our above average inheritance of their abilities. Don't you dare accuse us of being pale imitations of the real thing!"

The masked man shrugged, avoiding a few more rage-induced attacks. "And what would you know of the real thing, hmm? Did your students go against two full descendants of the Kōsetsu clan and come away relatively unscathed as the victors? Hmm?" He could feel the smirk on his face growing as his opponent grew angrier and angrier.

"I don't give…" …a missed right hook… "…a flying…" …a weak attempt at a lunge… "…_fuck_…" …an elbow to the back of the head sent him into the snow… "…who your students…" …and his attempt to get up was stopped by a bonk to the head… "…beat…I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

"Yeah, well, this has been fun…" Kakashi said, seemingly ignoring him and turning around to walk away, "…but I have better priorities. I think my students might deserve my attention more than you." He heard a snarl of pure rage and rolled his eyes in bored amusement. The jōnin sidestepped the jab of the kunai and brought his elbow down hard on the rogue's head, sending him into blissful unconsciousness. "Too easy…" he drawled, chuckling to himself. "Now…let's go see what the others have been up to."

…xXx…

A good question indeed. And what were Sasuke and Sakura doing? Well…

"When do you think she'll realize that it's impossible for Venus fly traps to grow in the Snow Country?" Sasuke said in boredom, his head propped up on his chin.

The pinkette stifled a chuckle. "Probably as long as it'll take Naruto and Hinata to stop beating around the bush," she replied immediately, popping a stick of gum into her mouth. "Want one?"

The Uchiha inclined his head in thanks. "Don't mind if I do." As he stuck the gum in his mouth, he turned his attention back to the flailing of Kokuyaku Fubuki, who was still trying to avoid the 'Venus fly traps' trying to eat her. Of course, no one bothered to tell her that the plants she was trying to avoid were mere immobile rocks, but where's the fun in that?

Kakashi chose that moment to walk up, with Nadare slung over his shoulder, and he took in the odd scene with a mix of amusement and apprehension. "Looks like you have things under control here…?" he said slowly, tossing the limp body on the ground by the train cars.

"She's got some skills, I'll give her that, but she's also somewhat of a one trick pony," Sasuke explained.

Sakura nodded in agreement, offering a piece of gum to her teacher as well. "Once we got her to use her Ice Style techniques…"

"…and I was able to copy them…" the Uchiha teen added smugly.

"…it was pretty easy to get her in an illusion," she finished.

The Leaf jōnin nodded slowly. "Looks like I had the right idea knocking out that ugly lug friend of theirs. Take out one cog of the machine, and they really aren't that much to get excited about." Wasting no time, he strolled over to the pink-haired traitor and bopped her once on the head, sending her to the same place as her other two teammates. "Let's get this show on the road, shall we? Hopefully Naruto isn't having too hard of a time protecting the princess."

"As long as he follows the plan, there shouldn't be a problem," Sakura murmured, following behind her two male teammates as they began to sprint down the train tracks.

"This is Naruto we're talking about," Sasuke said ruefully, "Protect and full frontal attack are basically the same words in his dictionary…"

…xXx…

A loud, painful 'oomph' emanated from the beated and ragged body of Uzumaki Naruto as he slammed into the icy rock wall of a nearby cliff. The numerous impact marks pockmarking the façade showed the signs of an intense battle, even in the short time that the two had been clashing. Unfortunately, all of those were of a similar origin as the one currently being carved, the combination of Naruto's body and the crushing force of the massive chakra-ice construct that was Dotō's Hyōton – Kokuryū Bōfūsetsu (Ice Style – Black Dragon Blizzard).

As the newest wyrm dissolved into snow, Naruto's body slid to the ground, no longer surrounded by Kurama's cloak. His winter clothing was beginning to show signs of wear and tear, and despite his superior chakra supply he was having trouble keeping up with the admittedly skilled traitor.

Speaking of Dotō, he was standing nearby, appraising the youth with a look full of disgust. "Why do you continue to get up?" he said, trying to ignore the figure moving through the snow toward Naruto. "What's the point? You might have been able to go toe to toe with one or two of my underlings, but I'm in a whole different league from them. I could probably give your teacher a run for his money if I put my mind to it."

Naruto coughed a couple of times and rose to his feet, wobbly as he was. "Sure you could…" he muttered in mild protest, but he was well aware of the fact that he was beginning to fight a losing battle. Not only did he have a point about his abilities (he was rather unsure who would prevail in a fight between the two jōnin), he also was sporting some kind of weird glowing armor. The traitorous Kazahana said that it was some kind of prototype that he had been developing the past few years. He also was kind enough to say that he was the only member of his team with a working copy; he hadn't perfected the technology enough to distribute it, but it worked well enough for the uses that he needed it for. So, while the rest of his squad got the easy fight, he ended up with the boss battle. Just wonderful.

The teenager tried staggering towards the figure running towards him, but he couldn't stop his fall. However, Koyuki was able to catch him somewhat, and together they both glared at the traitorous Snow ninja. "What are you doing?" the blond hissed, both thankful and extremely nervous at the same time. "It's you he's after!"

"Sorry boss, we tried to stop her," one of the trailing clones said apologetically, arriving a moment later.

The princess rolled her eyes, trying not to face the seriousness of the situation. "It's not like you're having much luck on your own." She then lowered her voice and hissed, "Sandayū is coming to, just hold on a little longer."

"That won't help, he's just an old man with a sword," Naruto hissed back. "We need Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke, and Sakura."

Koyuki pretended to look shocked. "Oh, what a wonderful plan! And how long do you think it'll take them to run nearly a dozen miles?" The silence and peeved look on his face said it all, and she sighed in resignation. "Were you planning on getting beat up until they showed up?" Again, the look on his face said it all, and she shook her head in frustration. "You ninja are all the same." She began to wrack her brain for another idea, but Naruto was way ahead of her. His expression soon grew contemplative, as if a plan was coming to mind, and he slowly shrugged off his female assistance. "Where do you think you're going?" she demanded angrily.

"I'm going to try to win our bet," he replied simply, and Koyuki could do nothing but throw her hands up in indignation.

"THAT'S your wonderful idea?!" she shrieked, not bothering to be subtle anymore. "You told me yourself you haven't gotten it to work!"

The blond just grinned confidently. "No time like the present, right? Just relax, I'll be fine." He began to march/wobble forward, and the clones rushed forward such that they were in front of him.

Meanwhile, Dotō smirked at the admittedly pitiful display. "I've heard of bravery, but this is plain stupid. Get it through your head, boy. You can't win this fight, not on your own."

"Well, maybe you should get it through your thick skull that there's always a way," Naruto snapped, right before the five blonds began to rush at their collective opponent.

The tall Snow ninja braced himself and quickly neutralized of the four clones with swift chops of his hand. What he was not expecting was the fifth, real copy to have a spiraling ball of chakra in his hand. His eyes widened in the first amount of fear that he had shown, and he quickly brought his arms up to defend.

That was quickly proven to be unnecessary, though, as the compact ball of energy quickly unraveled in a gust of ethereal wind, leaving Naruto in quite the awkward situation. His hand was already moving forward, so he changed the move into a simple punch, but the moment was lost, and Dotō quickly slapped it aside and kneed the blond in the gut. "Alright, brat, you've got my attention…" he grumbled, angrier at himself for underestimating his persistent opponent than anything. "But…you'll have to do better than that, running off half-cocked with poorly developed techniques. That doesn't even look that intimidating. Who taught you that, a four-year-old?"

"My father and godfather did, if you must know, you asswipe," Naruto growled, backing up a few steps with his clones protecting him once more. "Alright, let's try Plan B," he hissed softly to his 'partners,' and they all nodded once in confirmation.

Dotō didn't look too impressed. "Wait, was that supposed to be the Rasengan?" he asked incredulously.

"Uh, yeah!" Naruto snapped back, bracing himself for another charge. "What'd you think I was trying to do?"

The greasy haired tyrant-wannabe shrugged and looked like he was about to reply, but the pack of blonds weren't going to give him the chance. All jumping directly into a three-tailed mode, they were on their collective opponent before he knew what was going on. All four clones quickly surrounded Dotō, while the original used the back of the closest clone as a stepping stone for a massive leap into the air. As soon as he was clear, the facsimiles began their combo.

"U!" The first slid onto his back and delivered a crushing kick to Dotō's chin.

"ZU!" The second did likewise but was only able to catch him in the side, though it was still a hard hit.

"MA!" The third was much the same as the second, though his kick was on the left instead of the right.

"KI!" The fourth was possibly the most effective, as the solid kick to the back of the elder man sent him into the air enough for the original Naruto to do the rest.

He was hovering in the air, the image of of ferocity with his demon cloak and a blue ball of dazzling energy in his hand. Dotō's eyes went wide as he realized what was going on, and he made a last ditch attempt to activate the full power of his armor.

He was too late, though, as the young man exclaimed, "Naruto Rasengan Rendan (Uzumaki Naruto Rasengan Barrage)!" thrusting the orb into the chest of his brutish opponent. And this time, the spiraling sphere did not disintegrate. The blond pushed it, perhaps unintentionally, right into the core of the Chakra Armor, and for a moment Dotō thought that there was a chance of it holding up.

That disappeared the moment that the Rasengan shredded the jeweled core like it was nothing, reducing the armor to a sparking mess of ordinary metal. And, with that gone, there was nothing to prevent the force of the chakra sphere from sending the villain flying away, right towards the edge of a cliff. His body tumbled for a few meters before seemingly catching itself right on the edge.

Naruto, having not thought his move through, likewise tumbled to the ground, though his clones were there to catch him and set him down in the snow before disappearing. A few moments later, the crunching of footsteps alerted him to the presence of his client, and soon her head cast a shadow over him, his eyes catching sight of a few tears dripping from his eyes. "Whatcha crying about?" he muttered good-naturedly. "I won the bet, didn't I?"

Koyuki rolled her eyes despite herself and nodded before helping him up. "Yes, you did, Naruto. Yes, you did." As soon as he was able to move with her assistance, they began to make their way back to the train, not noticing that there was something, or rather someone, conspicuously missing from the edge of the cliff…

_**A few hours later, at the Fire Temple**_

Kiba's phone went off, and he quickly jabbed his hand in his pocket to silence it, not wanting to disturb the final pleasantries between the two jōnin squad leaders, the Sarutobi family, the monks, and the two freshly minted allied daimyo. "Stupid thing never stays on silent…" he grumbled as he extracted the device and looked at what had caused the notification. His face took on a look of surprise as he saw it was a number of pictures from Sakura and a message from Sasuke. "What the heck…?" he asked in wonder, unlocking the phone and going to the group message. He looked at what had been sent to him, scrolling up a little…and he couldn't help the waves of laughter that began to fall from his mouth.

Only the opportune hand of Shino prevented any further harm, and Ino hissed, "What's your problem? Don't you have any sense of decorum?" 

Obviously the dog trainer wasn't in any shape to reply, so he merely handed his phone over to Ino, and the other genin crowded around it. The photos showed the progression of Koyuki fulfilling her part of the bet, signing a photo as well as taking one with Naruto, but the the one that she took wasn't with him…per se. It was with him, passed out on the bench of a train, with numerous bandages covering the likely already healed wounds from his battle with Dotō, and the princess was giving him a peck on the cheek as he remained blissfully unaware.

As the crew began to snicker softly, Ino scrolled up and saw that Sasuke had added that the actress had indeed included souvenirs for all of Naruto's friends, and that this was a last prank to pull on the ultimate prankster before they parted ways.

As the muted giggles turned to full on laughter, and the two sensei came over after saying their goodbyes to this confusing scene, Hinata ended up with the phone in her hands, and she quickly forwarded the picture of the wounded Naruto getting a peck on the cheek to her own device before stowing the cell phone back in the hands of a laughing Kiba.

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned!

Definitely rushed through this so I could get back to the exams (and the main plot) for the next chapter! BUT WE'RE BACK BABY. EXAM TIME HERE WE COME.

Also, totally went overboard with the alliteration in the Kakashi-Nadare fight. Sorry not sorry.

**Review Responses:**

**Appletank: **As someone getting a Ph.D. in chemistry, I have to find ways to amuse myself with little tidbits haha. And competency is just back to more schooling, more maturity, and a different environment. You raise a valid question. I'm hoping this chapter (as in the one above) finishes it out; if not we'll at least preface the beginning at the end of the following chapter. I'm starting to feel like I'm babbling a little haha.

**jcampbellohten: **Oh, I think it's Chapter 22, right after the second flashback. And I figure people would assume which route I was going with Snow, so why not make it extremely obvious as well as change things up a bit? Dōto being in a cave is just because he's "on the run," even though he really isn't. Just a base of operations.

**Quinn1989:** Yup, just think about what reason there would be for Kurama to still be in Kushina (with a different level of cooperation fro her prior relationship with the lovable fox) but also be in Naruto. The answer is there is you think about it.


	30. (Chūnin Exams 12) Chapter 28

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, including in this chapter, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** As Sasuke and Sakura continued to improve upon their genjutsu, and Kakashi departed for the bathroom to ease his stormy stomach, Naruto was pestering the hell out of people for balloons to complete his Rasengan. Koyuki approached Sasuke and Sakura for a bodyguard to accompany her to the car that Naruto was in, but her assistant jumped in and offered instead. This turned out to be a major mistake that Sasuke couldn't identify early enough, as the assistant-traitor blew the connector separating Naruto and Koyuki from the rest of the Leaf ninja. The majority of Team 7 was somewhat at a disadvantage due to numbers, but Sakura's quick thinking and Kakashi's relative recovery sealed them a victory. Meanwhile, Naruto was forced to defend Koyuki from her uncle, who had been driving the train, and he was having an extremely rough go of it until he managed to complete one Rasengan and send him flying before passing out from exhaustion. Back in the Hidden Leaf Village, Teams 8 and 10 received messages from the non-injured members of Team 7, confirming the receipt of autographs and pictures as well as some candid shots of Naruto that Hinata promptly stashed on her own phone

**AN:** Just a note because some people have been bringing it up. I am fully aware of the family name of the Yuki clan, I just chose to go in a different direction because it didn't sound very interesting to me. The Yuki part is more part of the legend in my mind.

_Around two weeks later on October 27_

A wrought iron cage clattered open, the sound echoing for who knows how far in the deep recesses of the underground network of tunnels beneath the Hidden Leaf Village. The lone significant source of light came from a flickering light bulb on the ceiling of the ancient elevator, casting odd and fantastic shadows across the otherwise dark and dreary landscape.

The clanging of chains and manacles resumed once more, having briefly stopped to allow the elevator to reach the current floor. A moment later, the occupant of the bindings shuffled into the elevator and turned around, glaring banefully at the men gathered outside of the portal through his one visible eye.

"Well? Are you coming or what?" Uchiha Obito growled in annoyance, rattling the large gauntlets restricting the movements of his hands.

As a few of the men began to shuffle around, the sound of rustling papers breaking the stagnant silence of the underground passage, one of the larger men stepped into the light and approached Obito such that his nose was mere centimeters away. "You're acting quite high and mighty this morning, my old friend," Morino Ibiki growled, the grim smile on his face not quite reaching his eyes. "What's the rush? You have somewhere to be today?"

The traitor's lone eye rolled in contempt. "So what if I do? What's it to you?"

Ibiki's grin grew noticeably more predatory. "Your attitude certainly hasn't grown any better. You've gone from a whiny little _bitch_ who couldn't fart without someone holding his hand to a whiny little bitch who's forgotten the true meaning of loyalty."

Obito didn't back down; in fact, he moved in such that their noses were barely touching. "And you've grown quite ugly in your old age." His voice dropped to a mere whisper such that his counterpart was the only one who could hear him. "Tell me, have you ever told your brother where those scars came from…?"

The torture and interrogation specialist didn't reply to that verbally, but a moment later Obito crumpled to his knees, breathing heavily as his mostly useless hands scratched at his face. A wave of chakra floated over the area, but the other members of Ibiki's team paid it no mind, having deduced where their muted conversation had been heading.

The scarred jōnin knelt down and grasped his old classmate's face roughly such that they were eye to eye once more. "I'm so glad that the Hokage authorized more…_question and answer sessions _with you," he growled happily. "It's just unfortunate that we have to wait until after the Chūnin Exams to complete them. You'll just have to enjoy the lovely accommodations of the Hidden Leaf's Maximum Security Detention Facility until we can meet once again." He shoved Obito's face away, sending the prisoner back onto his back, and departed the ancient portal.

One of the men walked forward, and the flickering light of the elevator showed a piece of paper in his hand, as well as the wooden mask of a beaver on his face. He silently offered it to Ibiki, who took it and signed it with an offered pen before returning it to his junior. Addressing the small crowd, he raised his voice and barked, "Let's go. ANBU, you're with me in the ele…"

_CLANG_

The large jōnin immediately stopped, and all of the Leaf ninja swirled around to look into the gloom for the echoing sound of a distant noise. "What was that?" Ibiki snapped. "Where did that come from?"

A few of the ANBU agents crept forward, their swords already drawn and at the ready for a potential counterattack. The deep reverberating noise echoed for a few seconds longer before fading into the gloom of the underground.

Ibiki pushed past the secretive ninja and shined a massive flashlight into the gloom, an action mirrored by his Torture and Interrogation squadmates as they tried to discern where the noise came from. "Do any of you see anything?" he snapped, though he knew as well as any of the other ninja that the noise was from deep within the cavernous tunnels, and the origin could have been anywhere from a few meters to a few hundred meters away.

"Sir, if I may…" One of his underlings moved to his side, and the tall scarred man looked down to see the older child of Yamanaka Inoichi standing at his elbow. Fūjin looked like a quieter male version of his younger sister minus the ponytail, and his personality was much more serious and mission dedicated than her as well. He was also much more devoted to his clan's arts than Ino was, and as such, he had created a number of variants in the area of sealing and espionage that were extremely useful to the village and his current post. "Let me investigate that noise," he continued, "You need to keep track of the prisoner, but my squad and I can see if there's anything to worry about, and we can radio it back in to you if we encounter anything."

Ibiki raised a nonexistent eyebrow before clapping the young man on the shoulder. "I appreciate that Yamanaka." The large man looked around and spied the young man's squad partner. "I assume that you'll have Shirune, but I would feel more comfortable if one of the Black Ops agents accompanied you as well." He paused for a moment, his eyes seemingly piercing the gloom of the area in a way that evaded most everyone else, and added, "It might also be prudent to have your girlfriend as well. Her eyes might help to ferret out any potential rats in the village's sewers."

The blonde jōnin nodded; he had assumed as much. "That's perfectly fine, sir. I was going to propose something similar." There was an immediate huff of annoyance next to him, and Fūjin couldn't help but chuckle at the reaction of the black-haired woman next to him. The Nara-Uchiha descendant looked like she wanted to give the older man a piece of her mind, but she managed to bite back any retort that may have come to mind.

Ibiki looked around and motioned to one of the shorter ANBU standing nearby. "Dragon, you're with them," he said, and the masked man walked silently over to join with the T&amp;I squad. "I suspect it's nothing, but given the number of foreign ninja and dignitaries in the village today, I don't want to be proven wrong," he explained gruffly. "If you don't find anything, you can rejoin us by taking Route 21A. It opens right outside the prison. If you get there before us, you can handle the paperwork."

The stoic Yamanaka had to crack a grin at that, accepting a copy of the transfer order from his superior. "You should be Hokage, sir, given your hatred for mundane paperwork."

"Yeah, well, I ain't no bureaucrat," the torture expert retorted as he made his way back to the elevator. He yanked Obito back to his feet by grasping the back of his shirt and punched the button for topside as soon as the rest of the ANBU had filed in. "We'll see you soon. Make sure to report if you spot anything." Soon after, the door clattered shut, and the elevator creaked up the shaft, leaving the remaining 5 ninja in the dark once more.

A few moments later, a burst of chakra and the snapping of a glow stick vastly improved the visibility for the team. "Where should we begin?" Shirune asked softly as he stowed his gloves, his dark goggles seemingly at odds with the current environment.

Fūjin waved the glow stick back in the direction from which they came. "Let's go investigate the old ANBU training grounds," he replied. "Rumor has it there are some passages underneath the primary underground of the village."

"I know the way to them," the ANBU agent said almost immediately, startling the three T&amp;I jōnin. "I can lead you there."

Fūjin raised an eyebrow in surprise but didn't object to the help. "Well…that works. Sounds good. Chizuko keep your eyes peeled for any oddities." As soon as he saw the flip of his girlfriend's hair, he added, "Let's move out. We don't want to keep the boss waiting." In an instant, the four disappeared into the gloom, the only marker of their path being a weaving green glow.

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 28 – The First Round of the Finals! The Matches Begin!**

Today was a most spectacular day. After a month long break, the various chūnin candidates, representatives from their respective villages, and those free within the Hidden Leaf Village were all making their way to the massive, sunken arena built into the ground near the center of the village. No tickets were required, just a desire to watch some of the best and brightest put their skills on display.

In the underbelly of the massive arena, the Hokage had decreed that a number of separated warmup rooms be erected for each of the remaining contestants in the tournament. They were modest if compared to that of a nice hotel room, but they were private and provided a nice place to relax…which is exactly what Naruto was doing. Though in his case, relaxing may not have been the right word. With headphones blasting music into his ears and a few comics on the makeshift table next to the similarly thrown together cot, he looked fully the image of someone who didn't seem all that concerned with the prospect of a fight in the near future.

That is how Sasuke found him a few minutes later, gazing at his best friend with a disgusted look on his face. "Wow…I honestly have no words. Hey, Hinata, do you want me to wake this idiot up for you?" he asked over his shoulder, addressing the young woman standing nearby. He could also see (and hear) Ino giving Shikamaru a rousing speech of both encouragement and berating. Chōji merely stood by and tried to interject when he could, but he mostly stuck to watching the blonde unsuccessfully get the lazy Nara off his own cot. Shino and Kiba stood nearby, chatting amongst themselves. Next to that group was Neji and Lee's partitions, and Tenten was there chatting amicably with the Hyūga while Guy and Lee attempted to break the sound barrier with their exclamations of victory.

Across the room were two sets of curtains for the Sand and Sound genin, and while the Sand area was surrounded with a number of dignitaries from the Land of Wind, the two remaining Sound genin were noticeably alone, not even emerging from behind the sheets around their private space. The lone Hidden Grass genin was in a similar situation, though the entrance to her space was open, and she was looking around at the other ninja with a mix of trepidation and longing. Finally, a number of high ranking Waterfall ninja, including the head jōnin Shibuki, crowded around Kanchū Fū, along with her brothers.

Hiashi's first daughter, much like the rest of the ninja who were no longer competing, was dressed in casual wear instead of her normal battle attire. She wore a plain yellow sundress and simple sandals, and her hair was up in a high bun. She shook her head at Sasuke's question, smiling lightly. "This is probably more of a private conversation, and I don't want to take any more of your time since you need to get ready as well."

He waved her off, any tension on his face long since dissipated. "I've come to peace with the fact that Gaara is likely going to turn me into a sand sculpture. I'm just going to try my best to not embarrass myself…" He turned around and made his way back outside, stretching his arms out. "Good luck with him. Maybe what you're going to say will be just the kick in the pants he needs to get serious."

Hinata smiled at him. "Thank you Sasuke. Good luck." He waved his thanks and departed, and the young woman moved in to sit next to the lounger, sitting down on the rickety old chair provided to each contestant. After setting down her purse, she reached over and carefully picked up his phone, noting with some amusement the random Earth Country band he was listening to. Then, she softly tapped the 'pause' button and lightly laughed as he jerked up at the sudden silence.

"What the heck…oh…hey Hinata…" he said, sitting up fully. "What are you doing here?"

She handed him back his phone as he extracted his head from the bulky headphones. "I just thought I'd come and wish you luck before your fights," she said softly, pausing at the end of her sentence.

Naruto wrapped up his headphones and stowed them back in his bag before stashing his phone in his pocket. "Oh really? Thanks for that. Yeah, I'm pretty confident. I just hope that those Sound ninja are gone by the time I get a chance to fight." His face grew somewhat tight as he thought about his experiences with them. "Someone needs to teach them a lesson for what they did to you and everyone else, but I'm also not in the mood to fight them and their underhanded tricks."

The Hyūga heiress smiled and tapped her hand on top of his. "I'm sure you'll do fine, no matter who you fight. I wouldn't worry about it too much."

The blond smiled up at her. "Of course I will, but I appreciate the encouragement…especially from you."

Hinata's face flushed, but this time in surprised contentment, but that created a new question. "Why me?" she asked slowly, silently wondering if this was going in a good direction.

Naruto looked surprised at the question and then chuckled lightly. "Why not you? You've always been the supportive one in our class. Sakura, Kiba, and Ino are the loud ones, Sasuke's the smart one, Shikamaru's the lazy one, Chōji and Shino are the friendly ones, and you're the one who always has supported me…" he trailed off before quickly adding, "…and everyone else too." He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, and couldn't find anything else to add.

The young Hyūga woman was equally stunned, but she found a way for a smile to creep onto her face as an idea came to mind, one that she would have found ludicrous months prior but now seemed like a no-brainer. She stood up, surprising him slightly, and walked to the threshold of the makeshift waiting area before turning around once more. "Once this is all over, all of these exams and stressful competitions…" she continued slowly, appearing to try to find the right words to express what she wished to say, "…would you be interested in spending the day with me? There are some nice parks that they converted from old training grounds and…"

"Hold on…" Naruto interrupted her, looking rather surprised. "Hinata, are you asking me out on a date?"

Her face flushed slightly, but to her credit she held her ground. "That would be correct…" she said before quickly blurting out, "…but if you aren't interested or are already dating someone I would understand too! Oh, I knew I shouldn't have done this…why did Hanabi suggest I do this right before the exams?" She quickly wheeled around and hid her face in her hands.

A few moments later, she heard a squeak and then let one out herself as two arms wrapped around her neck and upper chest. "You beat me to it," Naruto said softly. "I've been freaking out for the last month trying to think of a good way to ask you out, and you go and blow all my plans to hell."

Hinata's hands retreated, and she turned her head slightly so she could look at him. "Wait, really? So… so does that mean…?"

The blond beamed down at her. "Of course I'll go on a date with you. I'll even bring the picnic basket if you want." As soon as the words left his lips, he saw the most brilliant smile erupt on her face, and he knew right then and there that everything that he had been worrying about for the past month was all but irrelevant.

"Really?" she asked hopefully.

"Yes, really," he laughed, moving back a few steps but keeping his hands on her shoulders. "Just text me when this exam nonsense is all over, and we'll set something up." His hands dropped down to his side as she nodded excitedly. The young Hyūga turned to leave, but his voice caught her attention once more. "Hey, Hinata…I like the new hairstyle. It suits you…though it looks good any way you style it." He paused for a moment and then began to dig around in his pockets, trying to stave off any awkwardness, as he thought of another idea. "Wait a second, before you go…if we're going to go down this road, let's do something to commemorate it." And as he extracted his phone, Hinata's smile grew even wider as he realized what he wanted…

…xXx…

As Hinata departed from Naruto's area, her bright demeanor and cheerful smile were not lost on the rest of the genin. "Well, well, well…" Sasuke murmured, watching her leave the room as if she didn't notice any one else there. "We may have a winner on our hands."

"You see that?" Shikamaru had walked over with an uncharacteristically smug grin on his face and a particular list pulled up on his phone. The rest of the Leaf genin also separated from their respective conversations and huddled around Sasuke's bed. "Looks like some payouts needs to be addressed."

Sakura leaned over Sasuke's shoulder to look at the list. "I forgot we even did that…" she mused. "Who won?"

Shikamaru scrolled down the list and replied, "Well, Kiba, Chōji, and Lee all guessed before the exams even started, so they've been out for awhile…" The more excitable two groaned in disappointment, while Chōji merely shrugged, "…Lord Jiraiya, Lord Hokage and his wife, Kakashi, Neji, Sakura, Sasuke, and Shino all guessed it wouldn't happen until after the exams were over…"

"Hold on…" the aforementioned Uchiha interjected, "When exactly did we say after the exams? Because I was watching Naruto's lips the entire time with my Sharingan, and the date isn't scheduled until after the finals are over."

Shikamaru examined the list more carefully, and he quickly shook his head. "All of you were guessing somewhere in the two months-a year time range, with Neji's guess of two years being the most pessimistic of the bunch."

The genius shrugged, not at all concerned. "Say what you will. If the past month had been more stoic on their part, I still say I would have been right on the money."

"Regardless," the Nara youth continued, "That leaves Tenten, Ino, and two parties who wish to have their names withheld." He consulted the document and began to read off the bets. "Tenten was guessing after the Forest of Death Stage, and one of our mystery bettors wasn't far behind in guessing sometime before the finals. However, Ino and the second mystery guest were spot on, saying that something would be going down right after the conclusion of the exams, so they are our winners."

Ino looked rather pleased with herself, while the other genin looked either disappointed or confused. "Wait a second…" Kiba objected. "Who's this mystery guy?"

"No clue," Shikamaru replied, shrugging nonchalantly. "One day I got a text message from a blocked number about placing a bet. No idea who it was, but they seemed to know about our little competition, so I didn't see any reason to object to it."

"That still doesn't explain who it was," Sakura pressed him, and a number of the other teens looked confused as well.

"I can answer that," a new voice piped up. The huddle of genin turned to see a young Hyūga, about 3 or 4 years younger than Hinata, standing before them. Her black hair was cropped in an angled bob, and she wore a light jacket over top a simple shirt and cargo shorts. Her face showed off a smug grin as she crossed her arms and stood in front of the huddle.

"Lady Hanabi, what are you doing here?" Neji asked in surprise. "Surely you aren't the other person are you?"

Her face quickly dropped into annoyance before it popped back to smugness. "No, I was actually the one after Tenten. I didn't mean it to be a mystery either, I just don't know how to use my stupid phone the right way." She quickly glared down at the device in her hands. "But…I do know who mystery winner number 2 is, and he has authorized me to collect his winnings, so if you would please…"

While a number of the genin erupted in protest, half wanting to know who the person was and the other half objecting to handing out the prize to a mystery person, Shikamaru merely observed Hanabi. Her eyes eventually met up with his, and she gave him a look of challenging, as if she would fight him if there was a significant problem. However, the young intellect's mind quickly deciphered the simple puzzle that had been provided to him and he reached around and pulled out the envelope of cash for the bet. He carefully split it up into two equal piles, shoving one into Ino's hands and inciting another round of protests while handing the rest to Hanabi, who quickly bowed and made her way out of the area.

"What was that all about?" the blonde girl screeched, "You just gave away half of my winnings to someone who didn't even win!"

"Geez, calm down, alright?" Shikamaru groaned, standing back up and stretching his now cold limbs. "I think I know who it was, and he's legit. Be happy you got anything, okay?" He began to walk back over to his bed, and most of the genin followed behind like a swarm of angry bees.

That left just Sasuke and Sakura, who were actually quite happy even though they didn't win the bet. "Well, at the very least we don't have to listen to Naruto's lovesick-puppy routine any more," Sakura mused.

"Yeah, not until the next relationship crisis comes along," the Uchiha teen added, and the two shared a laugh over that.

…xXx…

In the part of the arena where many of the clan leaders and high-ranking members of the village's hierarchy usually sat, one of those individuals made his way to where he normally viewed such events and found an envelope lying in his spot. It was a plain white envelope, though it was rather full, and on the front it simply said 'Papa.' He bent over and picked it up, and when he turned it over there was another message – 'Your half – Yamanaka Ino also won.'

Despite the minor loss, the man smiled, happy partially for the small extra income but mostly for the happiness of his other daughter, and stowed the envelope in his robes quickly before turning to greet a number of other individuals who were arriving at the same time.

_Around thirty minutes later_

"Are you sure about this?" Shiranui Genma, the proctor for the third part of the exam, asked skeptically as he reviewed the information on the computer screen in front of him. Surrounding him were the two Kage currently in the Hidden Leaf Village, as well as the jōnin leader of Hidden Waterfall and a representative from Hidden Grass. A few other people, including high ranking members of the village like the Third Hokage's former classmates, milled around but stayed back from the discussion. They were standing in the box seats of the arena, and a general buzz was beginning to take over as spectators, both civilian and ninja alike, began to make their way to their seats.

"For the sake of fairness, I think this is the best option," Minato replied, though he didn't look especially pleased with the change being made.

Shibuki huffed in annoyance. "I don't have an inherent issue with either route, but if Hidden Sound wanted to raise a fuss with how the bracket was set up, the least they could do would be to send someone in person, not complain about it in written form." The Grass jōnin nodded silently in agreement.

Rasa sighed, obviously feeling much of the same as his counterpart. "We have strict rules to follow concerning the proceedings of these exams, and if even one participating village raises a concern, we are obligated to do our best to conform to their request." His face showed a much different sentiment, however, though he kept his cool.

"Agreed," Minato added, shutting the top on the laptop. "We don't really have a choice in the matter, but everything should be fine as long as we don't change anything else." However, he didn't miss the shaded look of worry on Rasa's face which appeared for entirely different reasons. He couldn't grieve about that, though, as a chūnin walked up at that moment and whispered something in his ear. The Hokage nodded and stood up. "It appears that the contestants are ready to go, so I'll go ahead and make the announcement now before the matches start. Are we all in agreement?" Both Shibuki and the Grass representative nodded immediately, and after sighing in exasperation, Rasa did as well, so the leader of Hidden Leaf moved to the edge of the box and flipped on the microphone that channeled throughout the arena.

"Hello, everyone, and welcome to the final round of the Chūnin Exams, hosted by the Hidden Leaf Village," Minato said, and his voice boomed throughout the arena, cutting the idle chatter to nothing. "We have a fine group of genin from Leaf, Sand, Waterfall, Grass, and Sound who will be vying for the chance to be promoted to Chūnin. I think I speak for all of us when I wish them the best of luck in today's battles, and I hope that each shows us their best efforts in proving their chūnin qualifications." He paused for a moment to allow the crowd to let out a round of thunderous roaring and applause, and in the controlled chaos, his eyes swept the area. He noted that all of the Leaf genin who had participated in the exam were seated in the section below him, and most of their parents and family were scattered in the rows between. Kushina was actually just stepping into the box, and she walked by and gave him a peck on the cheek before sitting down nearby, greeting the Kazekage as she did.

Minato's eyes then traveled to the opposite side of the arena, where he could see the long open window of a room overlooking the arena where the contestants were gathered. He identified his son and sighed in resignation. There was no way that Naruto would like this. Turning the mike back on, he began to speak once more. "Before we start the competition, I do need to make an announcement about the matches. Due to a filed complaint and in accordance with the guidelines drafted by the Five Kage, we have reassigned the competitors. Please refer to the screens around the arena for the updated match schedule…"

…xXx…

"What's Uncle Minato talking about?" Sasuke asked in confusion. "Who filed a complaint?"

"No idea," Neji replied, equally baffled. "Does that happen often?" All four Leaf genin looked at the one most likely to know the answer, but it was rather obvious that he didn't have a clue. Naruto had an expression not unlike that of a lovesick puppy, though when he heard his father's announcement, he did briefly look surprised and then annoyed – for good reason. It wasn't hard to guess that he was worried about losing his bye.

"Hey, Naruto, quit having Hinata fantasies and wake up," Shikamaru drawled from his position on the floor. "You might actually be battling this time around."

"Shut up," the blond muttered back mostly in good fun, "There's no way that Dad would take my bye away from me."

"And I would appreciate if you don't talk about my cousin that way," Neji ground out, "Regardless, here come the matches. Let's take a look." As the Hyūga prodigy said that, they peered at the screen as the new matchups flashed to life.

_**Hyūga Neji vs. Zaku Abumi**_

_**Dosu Kinuta vs. Rock Lee**_

_**Karin vs. Uchiha Sasuke**_

_**Nara Shikamaru vs. Temari**_

_**Gaara vs. Kanchū Fū vs. Uzumaki Naruto **_

Neji's eyes flashed immediately as he recognized his chance to get revenge for Tenten, while Shikamaru merely sighed in annoyance, recognizing his matchup as one that would be particularly troublesome. Lee appeared to not care in the least who he was matched up with, merely shouting his excitement at the top of his lungs, while Sasuke turned around to try to identify who his opponent was.

Naruto's expression, on the other hand, dropped like a rock, and he stomped over to the screen with narrowed eyes and reread the matches just to make sure he hadn't seen wrong the first time. "Okay, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" he exploded, turning around in angst. "WHY AM I FIGHTING TWO JINCHŪRIKI?"

…xXx…

"Looks like he's taking it as well as expected," Kushina noted gleefully. "Definitely made the right decision, my dear."

Minato looked more anxious than happy, but he couldn't help but smile at his boy's overreaction. "I'm just trying to follow the rules, honey. I'm not sure torturing our son is the best route to take in that endeavor, but…what's done is done, I guess." He punched at the button to turn the microphone back on and cleared his throat to catch the attention of the whispering crowd once more. Kushina shrugged and continued to watch her irritated son whine in the contestants' box. "With the change in matchups and order, we are going to start today's event with Hidden Leaf's Hyūga Neji going up again Hidden Sound's Zaku Abumi. I wish them, and the rest of the genin, the very best in their battles today. Will those two competitors please make their way to the arena floor? Proctor Shiranui will meet you there." The Hokage nodded to the mentioned jōnin, who disappeared in a flash of leaves, before speaking up once more. "Just to review the rules, while we encourage you to demonstrate your abilities, strategy, and cunning at the highest level, we will step in if the proctor or one of the other observers deems your conduct to be in excess of the spirit of the exams. This is not meant to be a fight to the death…"

As he said that, he noticed the spiky haired genin from Hidden Sound immediately leap from the window and land in the arena, looking extremely cocky and anxious to get the fight started. Genma also saw the look on the Sound genin's face and exchanged a brief look of knowing with Minato.

Neji jumped down a moment later, and Zaku's sneer grew wider as he watched the turbulent emotions flash across the Hyūga prodigy's face. Genma warily watched them both as they came to stand about ten yards from each other before simply stating, "Alright, you two. Don't kill each other…" before leaping away.

"You must feel really angry, huh?" the Sound genin taunted gleefully. "We wrecked your team in that creepy forest, our boss gave you a lovely parting gift, and I absolutely destroyed your girlfriend in the last round of…"

Neji didn't give him a chance to complete that statement, as the long haired Hyūga was in front of his opponent before he could react, slamming down with an open palm and smashing Zaku's head into the turf. "On your knees, you worm," he growled before channeling a massive amount of chakra into his hand. "Hakke Kūshō (Eight Trigrams Air Palm)!" Right as the ground erupted into a cloud of dust and rocks, a puff of smoke indicated some manner of trickery, and Neji's bulging eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"You're not fooling anyone, especially not a Hyūga who can track your chakra through the ground as you slither away like the worm that you are," he hissed, jumping back and slamming the ground with a cry of "Doton – Hakke Doryūha (Earth Style – Eight Trigrams Earth Flow Wave)!" The dirt floor of the arena began to ripple like the waves of the ocean, and one spot a dozen yards away began to bulge spectacularly. Neji injected more chakra into his attack, and the earth erupted like a dirty volcano, sending Zaku flying into the air. The robed genin prepared himself to strike once more, but his opponent didn't come crashing to the ground like he expected.

"You like this?" the Sound savage taunted gleefully, as bursts of air erupted from his hand to keep him floating in the air. "Got a few new tricks over the last month that I've been dying to try out." He began to fall down towards the ground, and Neji began to charge forward to intercept at the impact point. However, he hissed in annoyance as his opponent jerked back away from him, obviously faking his inability to stay airborne and cackling the whole way. "No, no, no, this little worm has evolved into a butterfly," he sneered. "And I'm about to turn you into mincemeat!"

"Get out of the sky you coward!" Neji snapped in annoyance. "Fight like a man!"

Zaku looked nonplussed for a moment before holding a hand to his ear. "What was that? I couldn't hear you over your bitching!" He rose higher into the sky until he was around the same level as the box holding the officials. He looked over and did a double-take at what he saw off in the distance before shaking his head clear and asking the Hokage, "This is legal, right? As long as I don't leave the arena I can fly to my heart's content?" Minato saw no reason to object to it, so he simply nodded in confirmation, though his face was strained for a number of reasons. Zaku didn't notice the tight expression and only saw that he could fight the way he wished, and his face once more broke out in a happy sneer as his hands angled down at the ground. "Works for me! Zankūha (Decapitating Airwaves)!"

Somehow he remained airborne and didn't get tossed around by the opposing forces – Neji could only figure that he had the same holes in both his hands and his feet – but there was no time to contemplate that, as he threw his body to the side to avoid the compressed blasts of air that slammed into the ground next to him, sending more dirt and rocks flying into the air.

"Dance, you white-eyed freak, DANCE!" the psychotic genin screeched, continuing to barrage the ground with his concentrated sound blasts. It was all Neji could do to avoid the raining waves, rolling and twisting and avoiding most of the damage except for some small cuts from flying debris. He really didn't have anywhere to run either; outside of a few trees off to both sides of the arena, he was stuck out in the open.

Zaku was content to continue to blast the arena to hell. In fact, it almost looked like he was enjoying it a bit too much, as his cackling and taunts grew more pronounced as time went on. He certainly was enjoying himself, and his chakra supply didn't appear to be suffering any significant side effects from his excessive expenditure of chakra. "I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am, you freak!" he spat, noting with pleasure that he was beginning to corner Neji with the continual attacks.

"Not hardly," Hizashi's son muttered, also noting that he was quickly running out of usable real estate as Zaku's attacks guided him towards the corner of the arena with some cover. As he rolled away from another blast, he reached into his hip pouch and wrapped his fingers around as many smoke grenades as he could. "Time to even this fight back up…" He leapt behind the closest tree and chucked the smoke bombs in every direction, and as they exploded and obscured almost half of the arena.

"Oooh!" That only served to please Zaku, though it did pause his attacks for a moment. "Not rolling over, are we? I like it, Hyūga Neji. I truly DO!" He brought his hands together in a cupped shape, and those present during the fight in the Forest of Death were somewhat aware of what was coming. "Zankūkyokuha (Extreme Decapitating Airwaves)!" he bellowed, just before a massive burst of air erupted from his palms.

The crowd began to scream in fear, but there was mostly nothing to be worried about. The blast erupted at the base of the arena and blew away trees, dirt, and the lingering smoke. Thankfully, decades of seals on the walls prevented any serious damage, but the place where Neji had been was now just a leveled piece of earth, and the arena now only had one oasis of sorts. Most importantly, Neji was nowhere to be found, and that was rather confusing to Zaku.

"Okay, you freak, where'd you go?" he muttered to himself, floating around in the air and not seeing anything. "Could he have gotten all the way across the arena to the other trees? Is it worth blasting them as well?" He pondered that for a moment before dismissing that. "No, I'd better conserve chakra. I'm starting to run a little bit low as it is."

"That's good to know." Zaku froze up at hearing the voice practically in his ear, but that moment cost him, as he was slammed downward by yet another open palm to the face. This one was much more powerful than the first, but thanks to the wings under his feet, he was able to right himself.

Swiping at his mouth briefly, he grinned and began to taunt his opponent, though he didn't look up but rather assumed he fell back to the ground. "You call that a punch? Felt like a pleasant bree-ARGH!" For his efforts, he received another open palm to the face, and this one, combined with his drop in altitude, sent him careening to the ground.

With a large THUD Zaku slammed into the ground, not able to cushion his landing in time, and he groaned as he slowly propped himself onto a knee. "Well, looks like you finally succumbed, huh?" he asked as he heard Neji touch back down on the ground a few feet away. "The power of the curse seal was just a little bit too tempting?" The Sound genin stumbled back to his feet and began to crack his neck. "Orochimaru figured you would come around sooner or later…well let's take a look at you then…huh?" He then turned to face his opponent, but instead of the telltale curse seal markings all over the Hyūga's body, he was treated to a much different sight instead.

"Surprised?" Neji asked, smirking confidently as his body emanated power unlike any that Zaku had seen before. His skin was ever so slightly tinted pink, and every single one of his movements, even the smallest ones, were smooth and purposeful. "Obviously you've never seen the power that wielding the Eight Gates can afford you. And this is only two of them."

The spiky-haired psycho growled in annoyance; obviously this was not how he had been expecting the fight to go, but he wasn't going to give up, and he stated as much. "Do you really expect me to just roll over and give you the victory, you freak? I'm not scared of some ancient wives' tale that may have given you a short term boost. It's not going to last forever."

"No." And Zaku suddenly found a hand around his neck. He began grasping at Neji's arms, but realistically all he could do is gasp and glare at the empowered Hyūga, who gazed at him rather benevolently. "You're absolutely right. It won't last forever. But it will last long enough to beat you."

"What?" Zaku managed to eke out before the hand holding him let go, and he lost his balance, which turned out to be the biggest mistake of the fight for him.

"Hakke…Nishō!"

"Yonshō!"

"Hasshō!"

"Jūrokushō!"

"Sanjūnishō!"

"Rokujūyonshō!"

The final burst of attacks completely crippled Zaku, and the force behind them sent him careening into the arena wall, completely unconscious as his head drooped down.

Genma walked over and bent over, though it was relatively obvious what the result of the match was, and when he stood back up his microphone-amplified voice announced, "Zaku Abumi is unable to battle. Hyūga Neji is the winner!"

…xXx…

**AN:** Get "Zaku is Iron Man" trending on Twitter. Of course Neji gets Eight Gates. Why not? Can't say I've ever seen it, but I also see no reason why it shouldn't be possible. Please review and stay tuned!

**Review Responses:**

**jcampbellohten: **Dude ninjas with phones is a thing. I'm going to have a lot of fun with that. I thought about it, and I do agree that it makes more sense that way. I may or may not go back and switch it around, depends on how lazy I am. It hopefully won't seem like a huge break, especially because I'm considering just restarting the numbering from the previous chūnin exam chapters.

Also fixed (hopefully I remember to upload it)


	31. (Chūnin Exams 13) Chapter 29

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, including in this chapter, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** The Chūnin Exam finals got off to an exciting start as a last second protest by Hidden Sound forced a rearrangement of the matches and battle partners. Neji and Zaku led the way in the first edited matchup, and while it seemed like Zaku had the upper hand due to some interesting new abilities that simultaneously gave him controllable flight and long range attacks, it was the elder Hyūga cousin that came out on top, demonstrating a previously unknown mastery of the Eight Gates. Additionally, before the first match even got underway, Hinata finally drew up enough muster to ask out Naruto, and she was most pleased to find out he was not only happy to accept, but had been trying to find an opportunity to do the same, much to the glee of the wallets of her father and Ino. Meanwhile, the transfer of Uchiha Obito over from Hidden Grass to Hidden Leaf custody was nearly complete, with even a minor reunion between former classmates and friends. However, as the group from Torture and Interrogation made their way towards their final destination, the maximum security prison, a disturbance deep in the caverns of Hidden Leaf's underground caused them some unease, and a team dispatched to investigate.

**AN: **I owe all of you wonderful readers an apology. I've been dealing with a lot of annoying things lately (Ph.D., rough breakup, vacation, school, life, etc.), and I lost my desire to write for a few months. However, I'm slowly nursing it back to full form, and we're going to try to keep this going strong from here on out! :)

…xXx…

Rock Lee was about to burst from excitement. "Wow!" he exclaimed loudly, causing a number of his nearby friends and competitors to flinch and cover their ears briefly. "I was completely unaware of Neji's ability to use the Eight Gates. That was amazing!" Contrary to what some might expect, he didn't sound slighted by his friend's secrecy; more like he was proud. He began to lean dangerously far out of the small viewing window provided in the competitor's box before he realized what he was doing and caught himself.

Sasuke also looked impressed, despite his thinly veiled rivalry with the Hyūga. "I've never heard of combining the Eight Gates and the Gentle Fist before, but that could solve a lot of inherent problems with that particular brand of taijutsu, if you think about it," he said slowly. "I bet his father and uncle have all kinds of ideas running through their minds."

In a rare moment of lacking the desire to dissect the finer points of taijutsu ability, Lee mostly ignored the musings of the Uchiha teen and threw caution to the wind, leaping out of the small enclosed balcony and descending to the ground below. He landed a couple of feet away from where the medics were packing Zaku onto a stretcher and eagerly ran over to Neji, who was having to fight off a couple of medics himself.

"I'm telling you, I'm fine," he groused, "I've been practicing opening the Eight Gates for a month now, and trust me, Guy-sensei has told me the risks and side effects at least three times a day when we're training together. I'm well aware of my limits."

That didn't seem to completely satisfy the medics, though. "We are under strict instruction to keep anyone who participates in these matches for observation for at least ten minutes, just to be sure that you are well," the lead doctor, a tall middle-aged man with glasses, said sternly.

Neji looked like he wanted to object again, but the shadow of another man behind the medic brought a grin to his face that he couldn't quite suppress. "Let me handle this," Guy boomed in a loud tone, "We'll get this all wrapped up before too long!"

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 29 – The Creeping Doom! The Shadow of Hidden Sound Deepens!**

Of course, Guy's definition of getting it wrapped up involved regaling the medics with a blow-by-blow of the fight, including his very thorough and emphatic explanation of how the Eight Gates worked and how in a stroke of inspiration he thought of overcoming the issues with the Gentle Fist by combining the two. The medics really didn't seem to care in the least; in fact, they seemed quite disturbed by the graphic description of Guy's "inspiration" and how it occurred while he was stark-naked in the shower.

Neji simply stood there and watched with a slight grin on his face, only rolling his eyes once at Lee's equally excited dancing next to him. However, both couldn't help but laugh when the medic finally cut their teacher off, only to catch the retort that ten minutes had indeed passed, and there was no longer a need to observe Neji for any sort of trauma because he had already been observed for ten minutes. By the way he said this as if it was the simplest and most obvious fact in the world, the medic simply agreed, mostly because it would have been too much trouble to argue otherwise and because Neji seemed fine.

Genma had made his way back over to the group, passing by the medics who were carrying Zaku out of the arena. "Hey, Guy, as much as I know the crowd wants to hear you discuss how you invented modern taijutsu or whatever you're talking about, let's save it for later?" he said in a droll tone. "We still have four matches to get through today."

"But of course!" the exuberant jōnin boomed, quickly flashing a blinding smile and raising a thumbs-up, allowing Genma to mentally thank the gods. "I wouldn't want to impede the progress of my wonderful student any more than I have to!" He clapped Lee on the shoulder and extended his thumbs-up, which was matched almost immediately. "Let the flames of your youth shine as bright as the sun, Lee!" he exclaimed loudly before taking a massive leap from the ground into the stands, inciting a small round of oohs and aahs from a couple of the foreigners who hadn't been exposed to the precious wonder of Hidden Leaf that was Might Guy.

"Geez, that guy is a handful," Genma muttered halfheartedly, though the small grin on his face betrayed his true feelings. "Hey, Hyūga, get out of here before the medics get after you again so we can start the next match."

Neji nodded and turned to leave, but not before extending his fist to Lee, who returned the favor before dropping into a complicated dance of stretches that he always performed. He slowly made his way across the arena towards the staircase to the contestant observation deck, avoiding the few bumps and craters that had been created throughout the course of his match. The stairs were somewhat difficult due to the adrenaline of the match beginning to drain from his body, and by the time he reached the top, he was ready to relax for an hour or so until he was to fight again.

However, his rest wasn't to come immediately. As soon as he reached the top of the staircase, his progress was stopped by the hulking form of his previous opponent's teammate. Despite his normal cool, even the Hyūga genin quelled slightly under the cyclopean gaze of Dosu Kinuta. However, what came out of the Sound genin's mouth was surprising. "That was an impressive match you just fought," Dosu said, his voice oddly reverberating through the facial covering he wore. "I find myself lucky to beat Zaku in a one-on-one match half of the spars we engage in."

Neji was stunned by the seemingly cordial approach the Sound genin was providing, and as such, he didn't have much of a response. Dosu recognized this and let loose a deep chuckle. "For someone from such a regal clan, I wouldn't have expected such a dumb look on your face." That quickly snapped him out of it, and Neji's eyes narrowed angrily. "Calm down, I'm not trying to start a fight with you. That's Zaku's job." The hulking genin slowly pushed past and began to walk down the stairs. "Remember – just because my teammate is a complete and utter asshole who doesn't give a shit about those around him, doesn't mean that behavior extends to the entirety of the Hidden Sound Village." As he reached the first landing and turned, his lone eye bored into Neji's for a few moments before he continued downward. "Just a penny for your thoughts while you watch our next fight."

The Hyūga teen watched as the Sound genin disappeared downstairs and then entered the observation deck, shutting the door behind him. He returned the slight nod provided to him by Gaara as he walked by and came to stand next to Sasuke and Naruto at the far open air window. Both were looking at the door where Dosu had disappeared but gave their friend the appropriate congratulatory remarks.

"So what did that Dosu guy want?" Naruto asked immediately, ever the impatient and nosy. "Was he wanting revenge for his buddy?"

Neji shrugged and shook his head. "That's what I thought, but he actually just wanted to congratulate me. Apparently that Zaku moron is pretty strong, and he's a hard fight most of the time."

The blond didn't look convinced. "He may be strong, but a lot of that seems to come from dirty tricks." He obviously hadn't forgotten about the trouble in the forest, even though his part in that act was after most of the fighting with the Sound genin had concluded. "Sure, being able to fly is cool and all, and using sound waves is kinda badass…but from what you told us, he's just as likely to attack his friends as he is his enemies."

"And after the whole mess with the curse mark that Orochimaru put on me and what Shino heard about the probable association between him and Hidden Sound…" Neji left the rest of his statement up to interpretation, and Sasuke and Naruto exchanged a dark look before turning their attention back down to the arena floor, where the two competitors were nearly ready to begin.

Genma took a quick glance at both, noting the anxious bouncing of Lee's feet and Dosu's stoic stance, before deciding that both were ready to go. "Alright, you two, don't do anything you'll make me regret," he said lightly before leaping away to relative safety.

Neither competitor chose to engage right away, instead choosing to eye up the competition. Lee's method of doing so involved him quickly launching into a complicated set of warmup exercises which, while appearing to be somewhat spastic, turned into a rather remarkable dance of grace and skill.

Quite the opposite, as was to be expected based solely on demeanor, Dosu's remained almost completely still, hunched posture and all, though his lone visible eye most certainly did not remain locked on Lee after his warmups continued for more than a few seconds.

The spirited Leaf genin quickly zoomed through a clearly planned array of arm and leg stretches before loosening his core. Finally, after two minutes of frenzied exercise, he came to a rest, only pausing momentarily to crack his neck…and gave Dosu a questioning glance. "Not to talk badly of an opponent, but do you not wish to loosen up before we fight?" Lee asked in confusion.

The bulky Sound fighter shrugged, his eye never leaving Lee. "I'm not one to get things bent out of shape before I get into a fight. Much rather that sort of stuff happen for good reason." However, he did shake his sleeve subtly, revealing the Melody Arm he still had attached.

Lee didn't seem too concerned about the lack of warmup on his opponent's part, his face-splitting grin indicative of his desire to get into the fight. "Well, if that is the case…then let us begin!" Without another word, he disappeared from view, the only trace of his presence being a few dust clouds that poofed into view whenever he took another leap.

Dosu's gaze now shifted around the arena, seemingly following Lee's movements step for step, and the Sound genin slowly began to tense up in anticipation of an attack incoming. His knees bent slightly, and his arms slowly drawn up into a defensive posture, his eye continued to follow the poofs of dust and air as Lee danced an odd circle around him, slowly drawing closer. Despite this, Dosu's eye remained vigilant, following his opponent's every move.

Suddenly, Lee's movements seemed to cease right as he had come within a few feet of Dosu, and the arena grew eerily still as the Sound competitor began to warily look around for any sign of movement. Given his position in the wide open, the lone visible genin began to inch his way back towards the remaining tree line, actually looking slightly concerned about the absolute lack of presence from his opponent.

However, he didn't have long to contemplate his next move, as a slight puff of wind behind him gave just enough warning to draw his armored arm up and block the kick aimed right at his head. Despite that, he still stumbled backwards and let out a grunt of surprise as he tried to recompose himself.

Lee didn't waste any time, hiding the fact that his leg hurt way more than it should from an attack like that and silently thanking the gods for keeping his leg weights on to diminish some of the pain. Taking a quick step to regain some force, he launched forward once more, again feigning the kick. "Konoha Daisenpū (Leaf Great Whirlwind)!" he exclaimed, this time putting the force of his kick into the gut of his opponent. Pleased to find much less painful resistance there, he swung around and planted his other foot into Dosu's chest before spinning once more and kicking him in the head, sending his hapless body careening across the arena.

Taking a step to generate some force, Lee launched into the air, this time shouting, "Konoha Tsūtenkyaku (Leaf Painful Heavenly Kick)!" His heel held high over his head, he descended towards Dosu's prone form and swung down with great force, meeting no resistance in any way as the ground exploded in a cloud of dust and smoke.

Rasa looked down into the arena with interest. "Did I hear him correctly?" he asked with a minor hint of excitement. "That was Tsunade's technique, was it not? Is that boy a disciple of her's?"

Minato exchanged a quick look with his wife, as well as with a recently arrived Jiraiya, and replied, "No, no, he's Might Guy's prize student. Remember? I told you about the taijutsu prodigy who suffers from a rare chakra illness?" He nodded down to the arena, where Lee emerged from the cloud. "That's him."

"So how did he learn one of Tsunade's techniques?" the Kazekage asked, "That's one of her masterpieces, is it not?"

"That's for sure," Jiraiya added, rubbing his chest in phantom pain as a rueful grin spread across his face. "I can't tell you the number of times that she unleashed that on me for…various reasons." He coughed to cover up exactly what those reasons were, though basically everyone present in the booth was only well too aware of his lecherous tendencies.

"Anyways…" Minato coughed as well to divert the conversation back to a more sensible realm. "I think Guy likely picked it up at some point, either from observing Tsunade in a fight, or more likely just studying the taijutsu archives." Rasa seemed appeased by this and turned back to the match, this time with much more interest than before.

Lee stumbled back from the crater, wincing in serious pain and favoring the leg he had used to unleash his most recent attack. He gingerly tried to put weight on it but immediately yelped in pain as his body weight was too much for the limb to support, and he fell to his knees.

"I thought you learned your lesson in the forest, but I guess not," a rumbling voice emerged from the dust, as Dosu made his way to his feet and began to brush himself off, seemingly without any sort of damage whatsoever. "From the looks of it, your leg's likely broken, so I'm not sure I'd advise you to fight any longer." Genma, who had been staying out of the action thus far, began to make a move towards the pair, but Lee stuck his hand out and halted that.

Carefully, the taijutsu prodigy shifted around until he was sitting on the ground with both legs splayed out in front of him. He reached down to the long weight bars that surrounded both of his ankles, only grimacing once when pulling them off of his injured leg. He left the healthy leg weights where they were and began to construct a splint out of the injured leg weights. Dosu, to his credit, did not attack but instead decided to watch and see where this was going.

Lee had 6 bars surrounding his ankle, so he took four of those and set them aside. Probing his leg gently, he winced upon finding the spot where the break likely occurred, and he set those four bars around that spot before untying the wrap surrounding his left hand and securing it around his leg. He then took the other two bars and set them on the outer and inner parts of his leg right above the break and secured them in place with his right hand's wrap. Once he ensured that both impromptu bandages were secure, he gingerly made his way to his feet and began to test out the strength of his supported limb.

"That's a great try there, my friend, but I don't believe that…will…work…" Dosu trailed off as Lee began to bounce on his heels once more, initially with some trepidation and pain but less and less as he began to shift his balance to take some of the weight off of the compromised leg.

"That may be true, friend…" Lee replied with a mere touch of mocking, flashing a brilliant grin through his pain, "…but as you saw in the last fight, the students of Guy-sensei always have a trick or two up their sleeves!" He abruptly stopped bouncing and crossed his arms in front of his face, and chakra began to leech from his body.

Dosu's lone visible eye began to widen, and he instinctively took a step back. "Don't tell me…he's actually going to try to open the Eight Gates on a broken leg?" he murmured to himself.

"That's right!" the green-clad genin shouted. "The Gates of Opening and Healing…OPEN!" A wave of energy swept across the arena, and Dosu brought an arm up to block the burst.

That turned out to be a huge mistake, as Lee quickly closed the gap and began to unleash a barrage of punches that the bulky Sound genin found surprisingly hard to guard. The power behind them was nothing to scoff at either, and Dosu was shocked to see that the Leaf ninja was mostly using only his healthy limb to pivot and launch, only resorting to planting with his broken leg when absolutely necessary.

While the blows weren't damaging, they were annoying, and Dosu finally deflected Lee's fists up and away and attempted a sweep, trying to catch his opponent off guard. "Try to block this, you monkey," he hissed, beginning to grow annoyed with this fight. He grinned as his legs connected with their intended target, but his glee quickly turned to surprise as Lee turned the attempted sneak attack into a backflip. As Dosu spun around, trying to keep on the offensive, he received a smashing kick to the chin, sending him flying into the air.

Lee, having used his hands as an anchor for the jarring blow, quickly returned to his feet and pushed off with as much force as he could, flying into the air into Dosu's shadow. As the Hidden Leaf audience began to murmur appreciatively, recognizing the Konoha Kage Buyō (Leaf Shadow Dance), the Sound genin attempted to counterattack. However, Lee quickly locked his arms and legs with his own. "I may not have my leg, but I can still do a number to you, my friend," he hissed.

"What are you doing…ARGH!" Dosu couldn't complete his statement, as Lee jerked the two of them backwards and began to spin towards the ground.

"I am simply showing you the burning fire of the Hidden Leaf Village! Omote Renge (Front Lotus)!" the green-clad genin exclaimed, moments before the pair slammed into the ground once more, sending a plume of dust into the air.

Up in the observation deck, Gaara and Temari had joined Naruto, Sasuke, and Neji at the window, with Shikamaru leading against the wall underneath the window, seemingly asleep. "I know I said it once before, but I think I'd be be lucky to win against Lee in a one-on-one fight," the redheaded holder of Shukaku murmured.

"You'd be lucky to win against me too, but you never go out of your way to mention that to anyone," Temari retorted, and her brother's face showed a slight hint of a grin as he continued to watch. A snort from below incited her ire, and her head swiveled down to observe Shikamaru open his eyes just to look at her before rolling and shutting them once more. "Oh, and you're one to talk, Mr. Genius Boy. You've been asleep or eating this entire time. Don't you even care about your friends or who your potential opponents might be? Or the actual opponent talking to you right now?!"

"Geez, you're annoying," the Nara teen muttered, not bothering to open his eyes again. "For your information, I already knew Neji would win, as will Sasuke when his match comes up, I figured this would be a draw going to whoever get the luckiest, which sounds like that Dosu guy from Hidden Sound, and God only knows who will win Naruto's match. It's way more beneficial for me to catch up on my sleep."

Naruto and Sasuke chuckled lightly at their friend's behavior, and the blond needled him further, "So you're going for the complete twenty four-hour sleep schedule, huh bud?" The Nara youth's mouth twitched with the ghost of a smile.

Temari didn't find any of this funny, and she snapped back, "Oh really? Then who's going to win our match, if you're so smart?"

Shikamaru did crack one of his eyes at that, and he appraised her for only a moment before replying, "Probably you, if I had to guess, but we'll see what happens." That certainly caught the elder Sand genin off guard, and she declined the opportunity to respond. As a result, she missed the broader grin appearing on Gaara's face.

The dust cloud in the arena began to clear a little, and to many people's surprise, it was Lee who emerged first, coughing and waving his hand around to clear the air as he stumbled his way away from the crater. As he did, he peered into the haze to see where his opponent had disappeared, but it was still too murky to tell what had happened.

Genma did enter the arena this time, and he began to walk towards the impact crater. As he did, Lee fell to one knee once more, the opening of the Eight Gates and the pain from his leg beginning to catch up with him.

The exam proctor came to a halt a few steps away from the crater, as Dosu's form could be seen coming to its feet within the dissipating haze. A moment later, the hulking genin walked out into view, and the vast majority of the arena was shocked to see that there was no apparent damage to him whatsoever. "That was a cute trick, but as you can tell, I'm still here, while you can barely hold yourself up on one leg," the Sound ninja rumbled, appraising the ailing Lee with his eye.

The spandex lover looked surprised for a moment, but then he began to chuckle. "I have to hand it to you, my friend, but you definitely had my number throughout the entirety of this match." His wide eyes strayed down to his injured leg, and he added, "Your body is incredible. To be able to incapacitate or break limbs from normal blows is nothing short of amazing." He struggled for a moment but managed to get to his feet so he could hobble over and offer a hand to the Sound genin. "This is your victory, but I hope that we can have another wonderful fight in the future! I would love to know your secret some day!"

Dosu hesitated for a moment, but then chuckled and took the hand and shook. "I would like that very much, though I prefer to keep my secrets to myself."

Genma nodded, letting out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. Happy that this Sound fighter wasn't at all like the previous one, he activated his microphone and announced, "Rock Lee has conceded defeat, so the winner of the second match is Dosu Kinuta of Hidden Sound!"

_**In the depths of the Hidden Leaf underground, around the same time as the Lee/Dosu match**_

Fūjin held up his arm, and the group of four halted in the eerie gloom of the abandoned tunnels underneath the village. "Chizuko, you see that?" he said, pointing towards a flickering light down the passage they were standing in, but his girlfriend was way ahead of him. Her lithe form molded to the wall, and thanks to her dark outfit, she was near invisible until the shadows being cast by the room beyond began to appear.

Since the light was still rather faint, as if there was a burning candle in a room adjacent to the one connected to the corridor, the Nara-Uchiha descendent felt little to no fear in sticking her head around the corner, her eyes flaring with her maternally-inherited Sharingan. After a moment or two of scanning the room, her hand flicked out and motioned for the rest of the group to move up.

"The room's clear, but there's a staircase at the far side that's been opened behind a false wall that goes deeper underground," she explained softly, and the other ninja poked their heads around to confirm the facts. "The light's coming from down there, and the way it flickers every now and then almost makes it appear like there are people down there, though they aren't making any noise if there are."

Fūjin nodded in agreement, and the group pulled back from the door slightly as he knelt down on the ground. "Okay, here's what we'll do. Shirune, I want you and Dragon at the lead. Use your bugs to scout. I'll be behind you, and Chizuko will bring up the rear to keep an eye on our flank."

"He's just doing that so he can make out with his girlfriend," the lone ANBU agent said blandly, and Chizuko glared at him angrily while the Yamanaka leader just rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Stop," he said in a low tone, warning off the retort that was on the lips of his girlfriend. "You'll have time later to rip his lack of situational awareness. Now let's get moving. We don't want whoever may be down there to get away before we can find out what's going on." He heard a huff near his ear and knew that he got his point across, and as soon as he stood, he followed Shirune and Sai into the antechamber.

The quartet slowly made their way down the surprisingly long and winding staircase, finding that contrary to Chizuko's guesses, the light was actually from a number of recently lit torches that lined the steep passageway. However, a persisting glow at the bottom indicated a very real possibility of contact, and the group carefully made their way to the source.

As Shirune and the nameless ANBU agent stepped into the room, hopefully their final destination, both gasped slightly, though the Aburame ninja remembered to release scouts to examine for trace remains of chakra or chakra usage. A moment later, Fūjin and then Chizuko also entered, equally surprised by what they saw. It was a rather large room, especially considering how far beneath the village they had to have been between the stairs and the subsurface detention transfer facility from which they had come. The walls were chipped and scarred rather intensely, as if there had been some sort of fight or battle there, and the floor showed similar signs of use. As the group walked across the room, they noted that the light came from above in the form of modern fluorescent bulbs crisscrossing the ceiling, protected from whatever fighting occurred below by thick wire cages. A clattering at the feet of Shirune stopped them in their tracks a few yards into the room, and everyone looked down to note a pile of chipped kunai and shuriken that were an odd mix of rusted and recently polished.

"What is this place?" Chizuko asked softly, looking around slowly, as if something would come jumping out of the walls at her. Even after walking in from the stairs, they were still not even halfway across the chamber, and the lights towards the back of the room flickered ominously.

"I…think it's some kind of training ground…" Fūjin replied softly, though his voice betrayed his distrust in that statement. "…but I've never heard of any this far below the village. I thought that all of the decommissioned ANBU grounds were on the level below the detention facility."

Shirune put his hand out and accepted a swarm of bugs that flew back to his palm from all corners of the arena. "Whatever this place is, it's been used recently. Not only are a number of those weapons…" and he pointed to the discarded pile of metal throwing stars and knives that he had walked over, "…relatively new, but there's also rather recent traces of chakra use all over this place." As the bugs receded up his sleeves, he turned his shaded eyes to his best friend. "We need to report this ASAP." His eyes roamed to one of the walls, and the rest of the group looked to where he was looking, where dark splotches resembling blood spray stained the drab white paint.

Fūjin nodded, his cell phone already in his hand and in the process of dialing the phone number of his immediate superior. However, he groaned in frustration as the call immediately dropped, the signal a few hundred feet underground being next to nonexistent. "Dammit, we need to go back towards the surface to get better reception," he cursed, stowing the phone for the time being. "Let's get out of here, just in case whoever was using this place decides to show back up again." His two friends nodded, and they began to move back towards the portal which opened into the staircase before noticing that their ANBU counterpart hadn't followed them.

"Hey, Dragon, what's up?" Chizuko snapped, seeing an opportunity to get back at him for the earlier snipe. "You want to stay down here, that's fine, but we're getting the hell out of here." When he didn't move an inch from his position, her annoyance began to rise, but a hand on her shoulder stopped any sort of movement as her boyfriend moved past her to investigate.

When he walked past and turned around so he could view his temporary team member face to face, he was surprised to note the exceedingly blank expression on the ANBU agent's face. The only sign of movement he exhibited were the odd way his eyes flickered around the room, with something odd shining deep…almost as if he had been here before…

"Hey…hey…HEY!" Fūjin said forcefully, beginning to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach as he shook the ANBU agent's shoulders. "What aren't you telling us, huh?"

Chizuko and Shirune were quickly at his side, pulling his hands away. "What are you talking about, sweetheart?" the lone female asked softly, confused as to his abrupt ire. "Why would he know anything?" 

"Look at his eyes and tell me I'm wrong," Fūjin replied shortly, jerking his chin at Dragon. Both of them followed his directions and couldn't help but come to the same conclusion, especially when the stunned agent's mouth began to open in some mix of surprise and recognition.

"We can't just leave him here while we report this, can we?" Shirune asked softly, his eyes repeatedly flashing back to Dragon's vacant stare.

Fūjin certainly wanted to, but he also understood the importance of keeping the safety of his team on a higher pedestal than the mission (Kakashi had pounded that into him repeatedly during his jōnin trials), and as such, he opted for a safer approach. "We'll split up. You two stay here and keep an eye on him while I go and find a spot with reception." At the impending objection, he cut Chizuko off and quickly added. "I'm only going to the top of the staircase. There should be plenty of signal up there, and then I'll be back down before you know it." That seemed to mollify her, and he gave her a quick peck on the cheek before turning towards the staircase.

He didn't get very far though, as only a few steps away from the rest of the group, the arena suddenly plunged into darkness. "What was that?" Fūjin shouted, instantly on the defensive as he withdrew a scroll from his hip pouch. "Who turned off the lights?"

"I don't know!" Shirune replied in a much more agitated voice than normal. "But my bugs are picking up the presence of at least four individuals…ARGH!" His voice cut off abruptly in concert with a large thumping sound, not unlike that of a large animal of some kind pouncing on its prey.

"Shirune!" the Yamanaka group leader shouted, now starting to get more than a little spooked. "Chizuko, I'm coming back to you!" he added, slowly slinking back towards where he remembered the group to be standing. However, an immediate lack of a response from his girlfriend sent chills running down his spine, and he began to hasten his approach. "Chizuko!" he shouted again, trying to keep the panic out of his voice, though both of his hands were soon grasping kunai as negative thoughts began to fill his mind.

A slight flicker of movement in front of him halted his approach, and he warily narrowed his eyes to see what it was. "Who's there?" he asked slowly, mentally hoping to anyone that may be watching that it was Chizuko or the ANBU agent Dragon. "Show yourself!"

A flash of steel, barely visible in the nearly nonexistent light still shining from the torches in the stairwell, was the only warning he had to defend himself with his two short knives, and a small tanto clashed with his kunai, accompanied by the horrible screeching of metal on metal. Even as he struggled to resist the force behind the attack, Fūjin quickly recognized the make and construct of the enemy weapon, and his eyes could just make out the traditional design of a dragon-emblazed ANBU mask. His eyes widened in shock, and that was just enough of an opening for Dragon to kick him in the gut and send him sprawling onto his back.

Fūjin quickly caught himself and made to get back up to defend against what he believed to be an inevitable follow up strike, but none came. The stark white wooden mask of his assailant quickly melded into the haze of the dark room, and he was left alone once more. The older Yamanaka sibling drew his kunai up in a defensive position once more, but he continued to remain safe for the moment.

His mind began to struggle between staying to try to help his team and leaving to an area with reception so that he could call in reinforcements, but Kakashi's words echoed once more through his mind and decided for him. Very slowly, he began to inch forward, wary of the fact that Dragon could strike out at him in his apparent confusion or that one of his compatriots could be prone on the ground.

A few feet in, a small scratching sound to his right caused him to halt in his tracks. Simultaneously, as if by divine intervention, Fūjin remembered that he had a small flashlight in his hip pouch. Very carefully, as he couldn't be sure of how well the unknown attackers could monitor him in the dark, he reached down and slowly extracted the portable light, pointing it ahead of him where the sound had originated. It didn't provide much in the day of vision, but he could tell that there was nothing there. However, another nearly imperceptible sound to his left distracted him once again, and this time he didn't have the reflexes to react in time to prevent a large black canine from striking him over the head and knocking him unconscious.

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned!

**Review Responses:**

**Kuro kaze no aka kira: **My stock response – my story, my interpretation

**ilovetoph4eva: **There's always kinks to iron out, but I'm glad you're enjoying it!

**Appletank: **SHHHHH!

**kingryu: **That's the best way to do it. For the most part, they're running with either their full part 2 outfit or a blend of part 1 and part 2. And close, but not quite. That's been done before, but I think my variation is a first.

**LilMichaelxSonikku12 and LordAtp the Flash Terror: **Thanks!

**Souseiki: **Hasn't been revealed yet. I know what it is, but I'm not sure of the execution

**stormnml: **Well that's an interesting theory, hmm?

**Vallavarayan: **The element of surprise of quite powerful.


	32. (Chūnin Exams 14) Chapter 30

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, including in this chapter, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** Neji's match ended with Zaku being carted off and Neji avoiding the same fate thanks to a well-timed intervention by Guy. As he returned to the observation deck, a somewhat odd encounter with Dosu began to plant the seeds in the young Hyūga's mind that maybe there was more to him than just the rotten nature of Hidden Sound, and he shared those concerns with Naruto and Sasuke. Lee engaged in combat with Dosu, giving him everything he had, including a few of the Eight Gates after acquiring a broken leg, but the mummy-like Sound genin was seemingly invincible, and Lee was forced to concede the match. Meanwhile, underneath the village, Fūjin and his team located an abandoned ANBU training ground, though evidence indicated that there had recently been people there. As Fūjin went to leave to call in reinforcements, the ANBU agent Dragon began to act strange, and at the same time the lights cut out. A massive canine began to take out the people one by one, aided by Dragon, and there was nothing Fūjin could do…

…xXx…

It was the clattering that roused him initially, a sort of clanging noise somewhere in front of him followed by a series of hisses and curses from more than one individual. "This TV sucks…" the man groaned. "And just when that Uchiha kid was beginning to take over that fight. It was just getting good!"

Another voice spoke up, equally perturbed. "I don't know, the red haired chick seemed to be getting along relatively easily." A slight pause, and he continued, "She's got as much spunk as one of those old Uzumakis, doesn't she? And with that hair of her's…wonder if she's related to them?"

"Red hair is a dead giveaway for the Uzumakis," another voice said, followed by what almost sounded like a growl…from a dog or something. "There's no such thing as a red head that doesn't have at least a little Uzumaki blood in them."

"Really? Huh." The first voice murmured. "It's unfortunate that there are so few of them left. And I can hardly see her."

"It would help if the damn TV worked." the second voice griped. "The fuzz on this thing would put Hidden Snow to shame."

"Have you looked around lately?" This was the authoritative third speaker, the one with some sort of pet. "These classrooms haven't been used in nearly a decade. We're working with outdated technology. Be grateful the service even works a little bit."

That seemed to appease the first voice, but he insisted on whining some more, "I mean, I guess so. Still, do we really need to sit down here and babysit these two? Isn't there somewhere else we could be to help out the mission? Like maybe in the arena where we could see the fights in person?"

"No, we have our orders from the top," the apparent leader replied. "Keep an eye on these two, wait for the special ops to return with the other two, and standby for the signal to commence the mission." There was another growl from somewhere near that individual, and after some more grumbling, the peons seemed to be mollified.

It was at this time that Yamanaka Fūjin began to become more aware of his surroundings. He tried to stop the groan from escaping from his throat, but in his groggy state is was somewhat difficult, and all noise ceased instantly upon the hiss of pain emanating from him. He tried to crack his eyes open and instantly regretted the decision because of the blinding light shining in his direction, squinting and turning his head away.

"Now now, boys, let's show our guest some hospitality," an unknown voice growled, both taunting and cordial at the same time. "We don't need to blind him…well, not yet at least." There were some mutterings before there was a "Yes, boss" from somewhere else in the room, and a moment later, the spotlight shut off.

Fūjin opened his eyes again, this time more tentatively, and was relatively pleased to note that he could now see, though only after blinking away the spots still dancing in front of him. He cautiously began to look around, and the immediate lack of any action allowed him to gain a better understanding of his surroundings. He was in some sort of dilapidated office or classroom, judging by the broken down desks and chairs scattered around the room and piled up in the corner. There were four men gathered around an ancient television, which appeared to be working intermittently, on the other side of the room, as well as one who had obviously just gotten up to turn off the spotlight. However, in the current low light, it was hard to get a fix on any of their features.

He tried to move his arms and legs, but as he surmised, he had been tied up rather securely. As he assessed this, he took note of Shirune in a similar state next to him, though the Aburame jōnin was still unconscious and in a similarly bound state. His head instinctively swung back to the right with the expectation that he would find Chizuko there…but a flash of fear shot through his body when he found neither a chair nor his girlfriend there.

One of the people in the group on the other side of the room stood up, and his hulking form made its way over towards the two captives. When he was right in front of them, he knelt down and began to peer at the two, an unreadable expression on his face. Fūjin couldn't help but look at him as well, given he was now in enough light to make out features. The unknown male had wild, shaggy brown hair, yet an immaculately trimmed beard and moustache, and his clothes were all dark, consisting of a light fur-lined jacket, a heavily armored undergarment, and black cargo pants. However, the most distinctive thing about this particular person were the red, fang-like markings on both of his cheeks and his slightly narrow pupils. Another pang of fear shot through Fūjin as he realized that there had only ever been one Inuzuka in the history of the Hidden Leaf Village who had gone rogue.

The man chuckled, acknowledging the glint of recognition in his prisoner's eyes. "Figured it out, eh? I'd be impressed, but as you likely surmised, I'm somewhat of a unique individual when it comes to the bingo book, and from the looks of you, you're one of Ibiki's T&amp;I brats, so I can only imagine the types of intelligence your lot has on me."

Fūjin opened his mouth, but nothing came out the first time, so he gulped and tried again. "There's no way…why would you be here?"

The Inuzuka shrugged and rose to his feet. "Do you blame me for being homesick?" He turned and began to stroll around the two prisoners, glancing quickly at the television as he did. "It has been nearly a decade since I stepped foot here. I missed all of the fun…the food…and especially the women…"

Fūjin surged against his restraints, energized once more as he craned his head around in an attempt to glare at his captor. "You bastard…I swear to whatever god is out there, if you do one thing to hurt Chizuko, I will kill you in the most painful way I can think of…!"

The man chuckled. "There it is…now that's the spirit…" He stood behind both of the young jōnin and clapped each on the shoulder before leaning down and whispering, "Though I wouldn't insult me…you might upset my partner…"

A frightening growl from in front of Fūjin sent a shiver down his spine, and he slowly turned his head back around…and recoiled in shock at the massive canine now snarling only inches from his face. Recognizing it as the one who had incapacitated his impromptu team back, he felt dread creeping further and further into his soul as his suspicions continued to be confirmed. The dog, though with relatively gentle eyes, was an incredibly intense beast thanks to its sheer size and dark coat, which upon closer inspection was a deep red color that could easily be mistaken for black in the lack of light in the room.

"She doesn't exactly like it when people call me names," the man taunted, walking back around to face the two, as Shirune began to stir as well. "But honestly, that's the least of your worries right now…"

Fūjin's eyes flashed from the dog to the man and back multiple times, the pieces of the puzzle coming together in his mind. "So…it's true…you didn't die back then…"

A deep chuckle emanated from his captor's throat. "I've died more times than I can count. You don't get an appointment to lead the ANBU without going to hell and back." He knelt down and scratched his companion behind her ears, and the dog began to growl in contentment. Something like a flash of remembrance shot through his eyes for a moment, but it was gone so fast it could have been nothing. "But, to answer your question, no, I did not die on the day in question. Inuzuka Rōga and Benihime still live, and we have no plans on dying any time soon."

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 30 – Plans Revealed! The Past Comes Full Circle!**

The former ANBU head stood back up and motioned to his men. The group gathered around the TV grumbled for a little bit, but a deep growl from Benihime quickly changed their mind. They quickly unplugged the set and hauled it over to where the two captives were sitting. Two of the ninja went back and grabbed the small desk it had been sitting on and brought it over as well, and before long, the rogues had the set back up and running.

"Since we have a little downtime, we've been watching the finals of the Chūnin Exams," Rōga noted, almost as if they were among mutual friendly company. "My friends here have been getting a little stir crazy, which is understandable after having to put up with Orochimaru for the last couple of years." Fūjin's eyes locked onto the men and noted that they indeed were wearing the black and white spotted, full body uniforms that were representative of the antagonistic village, and his mouth opened in the obvious question. However, Rōga merely wagged a finger at him. "Now, now, you know better than that. You'll find out what's going on the same time as everyone else."

"Then why don't you tell me where the fuck you've taken Chizuko, because she's definitely not here!" the Yamanaka jōnin roared, physically jerking against his restraints and nearly rising to his feet before losing his balance and tipping the chair over. The Sound ninja all rose to their feet, but once more Rōga calmed then by raising his hand.

He walked over, noting that his canine companion had already leaned back on her haunches so that she was at eye level with their prisoner, and knelt down, pulling Fūjin's head up by his hair. His mouth contorted into a snarl, and his elongated canines could be seen. "You damn Leaf ninja, obsessing over love and loyalty, putting power and prestige on the backburner when that's what drives this world at the end of the day. Stop worrying about your damn girlfriend. While my word may not mean much to you, try to get it through your lovesick mind that she hasn't been harmed."

Despite the whispered warnings from Shirune to shut up, Fūjin continued. "Your word means nothing, traitor. You left behind a prestigious position, a fantastic village full of friends and comrades, one of the oldest clans in Hidden Leaf, and most importantly, you ditched your own wife, daughter, and son…URGH!"

Benihime's growling grew to a fever pitch, and Rōga slammed Fūjin's head into the ceramic tile floor, causing an explosion of stars in front of the T&amp;I jōnin's eyes. "I've been relatively cordial up until now, Yamanaka, but my patience only extends so far. I don't know what stories your father may have been telling outside of class, but we did not like each other, so don't push me. Do **NOT **presume to know what any of my motivations may or may not have been."

Through his pain and disorientation, Fūjin found a way to let out a weak chuckle. "You're running away from the past, and that will catch up with you eventually."

Benihime looked like she wanted to rip the youngster's head off, but Rōga, somewhat unexpectedly, stood back up and turned around, and the massive stealth hound appeared to back down reluctantly. "You may be right, and when that time comes I will accept whatever judgment comes my way, but until then, I will fight for what I believe to be righteous and true." At that moment, what sounded like a radio began to beep from within his jacket, and he extracted the device and said, "What do you have for me?" His back remained turned as he began to listen to the report, and his dog slowly walked over to the wall, where a small pile of towels could be seen. She made herself at home there and closed her eyes.

"It might be a good idea if you stop antagonizing these guys," Shirune hissed from above, in as low of a tone as was audible. "I have a plan to try to turn the tables on them, but that won't work if you get the shit beaten out of you…or worse."

Fūjin spit out a mixture of spit and blood. "Calm down," he whispered back, "I know I sound pissed off, and that's because I am, but I'm trying to get this guy riled up enough to let something slip."

Shirune rolled his eyes, though the action couldn't be seen by anyone else. "Good luck with that. Do you remember who this guy used to be? The types of missions in this guy's backlog would make your skin curdle." He began to slowly shake his loose sleeves so that more of his skin was exposed, and his characteristically pale skin slowly began to darken. "Keep him talking but don't be so antagonistic."

"You know what I find to be the best part about the Chūnin Exams?" Rōga's radio call had apparently ended, as he turned back to face the two Leaf captives. "It allows an international exchange of knowledge about the rising talents in each village. It's a rare occasion for villages to come together in times of peace and share their shining talents for all the world to see." He gestured to the television, where they could see that the third match had ended, with Sasuke being victorious. Karin didn't appear to be too injured or upset, though she was still obviously smitten with the young Uchiha. As both left the arena, Sasuke exchanged pleasantries with Shikamaru, who looked more than a little annoyed at having to fight, especially with the absolutely gleeful Temari taunting him as they entered the ring.

Rōga continued to watch the screen with interest as Shikamaru and Temari began to engage in battle. "Uchiha Sasuke. Nara Shikamaru. The Kazekage's eldest, the wind sorceress Temari. And later, the crowning jewel of this little tournament…the trio of jinchūriki that have been gathered together…" At the shocked look on the Leaf ninjas' faces, he chuckled. "Didn't think I was aware of the power that Kanchū Fū holds within herself, did you? You'd be surprised at the breadth of our knowledge." He continued to watch as the genin clashed in the ring. "So many great bloodlines involved in these finals, even those that your lovely girlfriend carries on."

Fūjin's eyes flashed, but this time he bit his tongue, realizing that he wouldn't be taunting him with that information if she had already been killed. He could only hope that she and Dragon, with what ever had happened to him, were being held in a different location. Instead, he tried a different tactic. "The Torture and Interrogation Force receives all of the records on combatants within the village, both resident and visitor, even those involved in neutral conflicts such as these." Shirune tried to hurriedly shush him, but his friend wasn't to be stopped. "When I was looking through backlog so I could give my sister a couple of tips, I remember watching the surveillance tape of your son from the Forest of Death, as well as his match in the preliminaries." He immediately knew that he had struck a nerve by the way the former ANBU boss stiffened, as well as the gleaming, now open eyes of Benihime now observing him from the side. "Before you ask, I'm just here to tell you that he fought well in both scenarios, given the somewhat unlucky circumstances he was placed into. Having to ward off your Sound genin, especially the one who uses that sound wave generator on his arm, is no easy task for those in your clan with highly sensitive hearing."

Rōga slowly turned around and appraised Fūjin, his expression unreadable. The Yamanaka stared back defiantly, and it was a good half a minute before the hulking Inuzuka spoke up. "From what I heard from both Dosu and Zaku, he didn't put up much of a fight at all. Sure, he had a few _lucky_ escapes from Dosu's sound waves, but in the end, Kiba's decision to pick that mutt of his instead of one of the stronger hounds in our clan continues to come back to haunt him."

The absolute defiance of his own son's skills stunned both of the Leaf ninja, and they had nothing further to add to his comments. However, the rogue wasn't done yet. "Still, I thank you for that little nugget knowledge. Do not take my criticism of my own flesh and blood as a condemnation of him as a human being. As with many things associated with the village, while I may not agree with his decisions, I do acknowledge that he played his cards as well as he could given the hand he was dealt." His eyes strayed to the TV screen, where Shikamaru was beginning to take a stranglehold on his duel with Temari. "Like this Nara here. He's got some fight in him…just like your girlfriend."

"What good does taunting us about our teammate do to you?" Shirune interjected before his friend could explode again. "And what good does keeping her away from us do? Even for an enemy combatant, this is highly irregular?"

Rōga looked at the Aburame with a hint of admiration before reaching down and pulling Fūjin's chair back upright. He then pulled over another chair and sat down directly across from them, the TV behind him casting an odd shadow. "Some of my friends are questioning both her and that ANBU agent that was found with you. It turns out that he's actually been with us the entire time, though he obviously was not aware of it until we appeared in front of him."

His eyes strayed back to the prisoners. "And soon, you'll be joining them, and your friend's little rinkaichū (phosphorus destruction insects) won't be able to do a damn thing to stop it." At their dumbfounded looks, Rōga chuckled. "You were the one who said it – our hearing is second to none, even if I have a radio call buzzing in my ear." Benihime growled from her perch to the side, and both prisoners couldn't help but exchange a look of growing dread. "Now let's relax and enjoy the rest of this fight. Our time together hasn't ended yet, and before long, you'll be seeing this world through a different lens…" His voice trailed off as his eyes focused back on the screen, and the T&amp;I ninja could only guess what that could mean.

_**Around thirty minutes later**_

Temari was struggling against the bonds of her captor, but there was very little that she could do to given that they were not of the physical variety but rather of the chakra variety, specifically Yin release chakra courtesy of her opponent. Both of their right arms were raised to the sky, though Shikamaru's face showed a weary grin and Temari's face was nothing but pure anger and frustration at being stuck in her current position.

Naruto grinned from his perch up in the observation deck. "Looks like Shikamaru has this one all wrapped up, huh?" he asked Sasuke, who had a few bumps and bruises from his fight but was mostly unharmed.

"I didn't know trying out that new technique I learned from my cousin would help him out so much," the Uchiha teen replied, a faint smile on his face. "I thought spouting mini volcanoes all over the arena would be cool and catch that Karin girl off guard, but I didn't think that lazy buffoon would use the tunnel I created to trap Temari with his shadow techniques."

A shifting sound indicated Gaara's arrival at their side. "This Nara Shikamaru fellow is quite the tactician," he said softly, his seafoam green eyes intently staring down into the arena. "What Temari and I were saying earlier were mere jokes, but after seeing this friend of yours in action, coupled with his strong performance in the preliminaries, I have to say I would need to be at one hundred percent to take him on."

Naruto grinned as he planted his head in his arms on the windowsill. "Sasuke's gotten beat by him a couple of times in spars," he said cheekily, ignoring the ugly look sent his way. "He either gets overconfident or pissed off, and both routes lead to him ending up like your sister down there."

Not one to back down from a fight, the loner shot back, "At least he'll agree to fight me. The one time you convinced him to spar, you thought it would be a good idea to use Kurama's chakra, and you ended up breaking his leg and sending him to the hospital."

The blond pouted. "Not my fault he's slower than Shino. He had plenty of time to get out of the way…"

A slight fluttering indicated the arrival of Fū, who floated over as she appeared to be wont to do. "If you're talking about little Shikamaru down there, I can definitely attest to his skill," she chirped, drawing a slight protest from Sasuke as her wings beat him lightly in the face when she drew close to the window. "My brothers and I fought with his team in the Forest of Death. Had to actually exert a decent amount of Chōmei's chakra to bust free of his little shadow bind, though I didn't tell him it took that much effort." She giggled a little. "I definitely didn't get cocky or angry, that's for sure."

"Why am I the butt of everyone's jokes?" Sasuke grumbled. "Seriously? Do I have a 'kick me' sign taped to my back or something?"

Naruto and Gaara exchanged a look, the former grinning evilly and the latter rolling his eyes. "Well, I can definitely arrange that if you're interested in experiencing that firsthand," the blond replied immediately. "I think I have some stuff in my backpack…" As he turned around to look, his best friend took the opportunity to kick him in the posterior, eliciting an annoyed squawk.

Sasuke turned back and looked at the fluttering Fū, as well as the stoic Gaara standing next to him. "I have to say, this is quite the rare occasion," he admitted, changing the subject as his eyes slowly shifting back and forth between the two. "It's not often one has the honor of being in the presence of three of the nine tailed beasts."

The Waterfall kunoichi stuck her tongue out at him, leaning back on the air. "I hate to say it, but it's also not often for anyone to be in the presence of an Uchiha these days." She quickly caught herself, the words spilling from her mouth before she realized how insensitive that must sound. "That came out really badly. I'm so so so sorry!"

Sasuke shrugged, the pain having mostly dampened over the years. "Don't worry about it. It's not like the Uchiha clan is completely gone. My cousin is one of the team leaders of our year's genin class, I have another cousin that works in the Torture and Interrogation Force, as well as a great uncle who is a higher-up in the Police Force. I know of a few others as well that either aren't shinobi or that retired from service, like the family who runs the ramen shop that Naruto is obsessed with. Old man Teuchi's wife is my mother's older sister."

The smile returned to the face of the female jinchūriki. "Well that's good! Honestly sounds a lot like my family too. It's just me and my brothers left, though at the same time we weren't exactly a massive, world famous clan like you guys were." Her eyes frosted for a moment before she continued. "Oh, and Chōmei says hi too! She hasn't seen an Uchiha in forever!"

Sasuke looked rather nonplussed, as did Naruto as he stood back up and swatted at the sleeve of his best friend. "Chōmei? That's the name of your tailed beast right?"

"Yup!" the excitable Waterfall genin chirped back. "You want to meet her?" She slapped her head on Sasuke's head, even as he attempted to object. "Hold on!" She sent a wave of chakra through her palm, and her 'target' felt his consciousness fade from his body and drift into a shared ethereal space.

"Oh wow!" a high pitched squeal emanated from somewhere above him, and he took a step or two back in surprise as a large form cast a massive shadow over him. "It really is an Uchiha, Fū!" the massive insect said in absolute glee, her wings buzzing in ecstacy and her mandibles clicking together as she spoke. "You don't see many of them coming around Hidden Waterfall! Lucky you! Last one I saw was that one that you Leaf ninja were so proud of a couple of years back. A real prodigy, that one was." The oversized rhinoceros beetle put a long, thin hand to her chin in thought. "What was his name again? Um…Itachi? Is that right?"

Sasuke chuckled, impressed and amused by the joyous bijū. "Wow, impressive. That's him alright. He was my older brother."

The buzzing grew louder as Chōmei flew down and peered at the young Uchiha intently. "Oh, so you must be Sasuke! What kind of luck is that where I'd get to meet both of the siblings! He spoke so highly of you when Fū and I encountered him as he passed through our village back then!" She stuck a bony fist, and the mind foreigner smiled and reciprocated the gesture. "Good luck! I can't wait to fight that old codger Kurama! It's been so long!"

Sasuke then felt himself returning to his own body and sense of awareness as Fū removed the hand from his forehead. He blinked a couple of times and grinned at the Waterfall genin. "Well that was interesting. Good to know that the bijū aren't all giant crazy demon foxes."

"**Yeah, and I'm glad that not all humans are whiny, brooding Uchiha,**" the fox retorted in Naruto's head, a statement which was quickly verbally repeated, earning the blond a slap upside the head.

…xXx…

"So here's where we stand…" Shikamaru drawled, continuing to hold his hand up despite the furious struggling of Temari to break his concentration. "I've got you right where I want you, you can't move despite all of the wiggling you're doing…it'd be great if you stopped that by the way, it's really annoying…and I've seen enough of your moves to have counters to anything you might have a sliver of a chance of throwing at me. So I really only see one way this ends…"

Temari shivered, remembering how his previous fight had ended with his opponent in a similar situation as she had been stuck in. Her struggles, paused because of the announcement, resumed in a furious way as she attempted, to no avail, to free herself from the yin chakra bindings of the Nara clan's special techniques.

"Yeah…I quit."

The arena plunged into a shocked silence, and it even took Temari a few moments for that statement to filter through her head, but when it did, her movements ceased completely. "Wh-what?" she asked weakly. "Hold on, did you just say you quit?"

Shikamaru released the Kage Mane no Jutsu (Shadow Imitation Technique) and scratched at his head, a sigh escaping from his lips. "Are your ears not working?" he grumbled, cracking his neck as he reached down and picked up his vest, which had been discarded in the middle of the fight. "Yeah, I quit. I honestly didn't even want to fight today, but my mom threatened me with my life if I didn't at least show up and pretend to put up a fight." He shrugged the light vest back on and began to walk towards the staircase to the observation deck. "Besides, I'm completely drained of chakra. Even if I wanted to keep fighting, and rest assured I still had your number, I didn't have any more energy to keep slinging ninjutsu around just to keep ahead of you." With that, he disappeared into the portal, yawning as the door shut behind him.

Temari spluttered for a moment, for once at a complete loss for words, before she ran at the door, only pausing momentarily to bend over and grab the massive war fan that had been tossed aside in the fight. The crowd, stunned initially at the admission of defeat, began to murmur once more.

As soon as the remaining competitors saw Shikamaru duck into the room and attempt to hide in the corner, they knew to ignore the impending eruption. Genma's voice began to float through the open air window, announcing that Temari had won due to forfeit, and for the last three competitors to make their way down to the arena floor. It was at that moment that the Sand kunoichi's voice exploded in the box, and it took approximately two and a half seconds for Gaara to disappear in a puff of sand. "Yeah, I'm with him," Naruto whispered, quickly mounting the windowsill. "She's almost as scary as my mother." With that, he vaunted over and into the arena, and Fū quickly followed, waving goodbye to Sasuke as she flew out and down to join the rest of them.

…xXx…

Kiba exhaled as he saw the three jinchūriki make their way into the arena. His hand strayed to the back of Akamaru's neck, and the medium-sized pooch raised his head from his resting position in pleasure as his master began to scratch. "Well, this is it…" he murmured. "Three of the most powerful chakra-born entities and the genin who hold them, and they're about to fight in a battle royale."

Chōji extracted a bag of chips from the backpack at his feet and cracked it open, having to dig through the remains of a number of bags lying in there. "Who do you think will win?" he asked through a mouthful of crisps.

Sakura and Ino were sitting in front of those two, and the latter recoiled slightly as a few crumbs scattered onto her shoulder. The blonde tried to discreetly brush them away before turning to glare at her teammate. "I'd like to say that Naruto would win, but I've been around him enough to know that he's more than capable of screwing up a fight." She rolled her eyes before glancing at Sakura. "Didn't you say you had him believing he was being eaten by an illusionary pitcher plant for nearly fifteen minutes?"

The pink-haired kunoichi giggled, remembering the particularly amusing day of training the week prior. "Kakashi-sensei was rather impressed, though he did say that Kurama was likely withholding any assistance because he thought the entire situation was hilarious." She turned to her other side, where Hinata and Tenten sat, and gave her Hyūga friend a sly look. "Are you sure you're okay with what you're getting into bed with here?" She noted the immediate flush with satisfaction but corrected her 'mistake' almost instantly. "Figuratively, of course. Naruto's got a lot of character flaws, and having a somewhat mischievous demon fox sealed in his gut is at the top of the list."

Tenten stifled a chuckle before tapping Hinata on the shoulder. "Come on, now Sakura, give the girl a break. She hasn't even had a single date to experience the human whirlwind of energy that is Naruto."

And, to everyone's surprise, Hinata herself spoke up, even as the blush persisted on her face. "I'd take Naruto's energy over Sasuke's obsession with training any day. Tell me, how long did he keep you out working on his genjutsu on Saturday?"

Kiba, Chōji, and Ino immediately started to howl in laughter, with Tenten's stifled snorts growing ever louder, and even Shino cracked a small grin. "And there it is!" the dog trainer exclaimed in between cackles. "Now let's she how she responds to that!"

Sakura's face grew ever closer to the color of her hair, and she began to splutter, "Th-those are two completely different situations! Hinata's going on a date with Naruto, but Sasuke's just my teammate! I work with him most of the time on genjutsu because it's an area I can fight on equal grounds with him most of the time! And eight hours isn't that long when you get into something you like!"

Kiba wasn't to be deterred and he began to poke at her some more, "Yeah, I bet you like to get into that!" Akamaru's barks adding an added layer of taunting, and just like that, Hinata was no longer the target but rather her pink-haired friend. Chōji continued to chow down on the bag of chips in his hand, choosing to remain mostly silent, unlike his teammate, who pounced on Sakura like a shark on fresh meat. Shino remained mostly stoic, only giving Kiba an angry look every now and then when he would get poked by an elbow in the side. Tenten remained mostly out of the conflict, though she quickly came to the aid of Hinata whenever it was needed.

Further up in the stands, a few ANBU agents strolled around the concourse at the top of the arena, occasionally peering down at the crowd. Their presence was merely procedural, necessary for the safety of the civilians in the crown on the off chance of something untoward happening at the village wide event.

At the top of the section where the Leaf genin were chattering away about love, life, and living, a single ANBU agent stood, his unmoving mask staring down at the field. He appeared no different from the rest of the special ops ninja scattered throughout the arena, with the same wooden mask and dark hooded cloak, but he remained completely still, not mingling amongst the crowd, not reacting to any movements by anyone in his vicinity, even ignoring the few agents that would occasionally walk by his position. They found nothing odd about the behavior of this particular ANBU, as some of their assignments involved coordinated rounds about the stadium, and others were assigned to a specific area within the arena. The idea was to maximize the coverage in case of an attack, but in the case of this particular agent, he wasn't even patrolling his assigned area. He just stood there, stoic and silent, watching as the three jinchūriki took their place in the ring.

Genma marched forward, sighing as he realized how much of a pain in the ass this fight was likely to be. "Okay, you three calm down so I can announce the match…" He rolled his eyes and gestured to the still flying Fū, fluttering in the air just to his right. "If you don't mind, let's keep things on the ground until the match starts and I'm a safe distance away from you three?" The teal-haired girl pouted but acquiesced to his request, with her chakra-based insect wings dissipating into dust as she landed back on the ground. With her positioning, the three jinchūriki were roughly in a triangle, and Genma realized with a groan that he was standing right in the middle, so he backed up until he was no longer directly in the line of fire.

He looked at each of the three, noting the energetic bounce in Naruto's heels, the calculating gaze behind Gaara's eyes, and the anxious movement of Fū's hands. "Okay, you three. We have somewhat…_unique_ circumstances here, so we're going to be operating under slightly different rules than normal. Because this is a three-man fight, I will have full authority over when we have a victor, or when a contestant is unable to battle. Whether that means that one of you is incapacitated, one of you ends up on top, or you knock each other out at the same time – it's my call." Once he saw all three nod in agreement, he continued. "The other change of course refers to the fact that all three of you are jinchūriki." A nervous murmur began to flow through the crowd, making it obvious that not everyone was aware of the fact that Naruto wasn't the only holder of a tailed beast in this miniature tournament.

Genma cleared his throat after a few seconds of frenzied whispers to get everyone's attention once more. "The Hidden Leaf Village recognizes the threat this may present to the viewing audience, so we have placed a number of safeguards in place. First, after a long discussion with the Hokage, Kazekage, and Head Jōnin of Hidden Waterfall, we have agreed to place restrictions on how much power each contestant is allowed to use. You each can use up to one tail's worth of your tailed beast's chakra to supplement your own, but any more and I will disqualify you on the spot. Also, I think it goes without saying, but full transformations or even version 2 forms are also forbidden. I only know about one of you, but we don't need a massive chakra construct bringing down the entire ring."

Kurama growled as he heard this. "**That's rather unfortunate,**" he muttered, laying back down on the grassy meadow of his chakra-bound 'home.' "**I was looking forward to brawling with Chōmei and that damn psycho Shukaku for the first time after all these years…**"

Once more, Genma looked at the contests, waiting for their approval. Gaara just nodded, Naruto shrugged in indifference, and Fū looked somewhat disappoint but also gave a nod. "The other protective measure will be the use of the Shishienjin (Four Violet Flames Formation) as a barrier between the fight and the observers." This caused another round of murmurs, but Genma simply continued speaking through this. "The ANBU stationed around the arena will erect the barrier momentarily, and I would like to remind everyone in the arena that while not fatal, the barrier will give you a rather severe chakra burn, so I would like to request that those sitting close to the edge please exercise caution when leaning forward."

As the jōnin was saying all of this, the ANBU in the arena ceased their rounds and set up in a roughly symmetrical pattern, flashing through handseals in rapid succession. As they did this, a shimmering purple barrier blazed to life at the bottom ledge of the audience and shot upwards, forming a large dome that extended dozens of feet over the arena.

The unusually stoic ANBU flashed through handseals as well, but his movements slowly continued after the rest of the spec ops ninja had stopped. After a minute of flashing through signs, he whispered something softly and began a new set of handseals.

"Alright, you three, that should be it, so if there are no further questions, comments, or complaints, I'm going to get as far away as I possibly can while you all try to beat the shit out of each other," Genma deadpanned. Naruto once again shrugged indifferently, and after a moment of hesistation, both Gaara and Fū nodded as well almost simultaneously. Satisfied, the toothpick-chewing ninja quickly leapt away, this time opting to flee to the safety of the competitor's observation deck.

Naruto wasted no time preparing for battle, immediately dropping to all fours and flooding his system with the allowed one tail's worth of chakra. His body was soon covered in a haze of orange energy, with two pointy ears, claws, and a tail emerging from the cloak as well. '_Okay, Kurama, I know you wanted to go all out with these guys, but let's show them what we can do when we work together!' _he projected mentally, in his mind offering his fist to his massive fox and receiving a similar greeting in return.

"**These fools won't know what hit them…**" Kurama growled back, his snout sneering in glee.

Naruto tensed his back legs in anticipation of leaping towards one of his opponents, but to his surprise, neither of them were making any move to fight. Both had blank expressions on their faces, their arms hanging limply at their sides as they stared forward at seemingly nothing. Their bodies were definitely preparing for something, as massive clouds of chakra were beginning to coalesce around them. Gaara appeared to be drawing sand from his gourd and the arena and gathering it around himself, and Fū's form began to be obscured by a dusty haze.

As the chakra began to condense, it was obvious that both of the other two were going at least one step further than Naruto had. Gaara's form began to transform into that of a miniature sand badger as the sand and chakra formed a sandy shell of armor around him, and Fū took flight once more as the hazy form of a rhinoceros beetle began to take shape around her. While it wasn't as obvious with Gaara, as he only had one to form, it was extremely clear that both were in violation of the rules concerning bijū usage, as Fū's shape included two wings/tails, and that appeared to be only the start.

"You've got to be kidding me…" Genma shook his head in dismay as his rules were already being broken so quick into the fight. He walked back to the ledge and quickly stuck his head back out into the arena. "Oi, I'm going to give you two one warning before I disqualify the both of you. Knock it off with the tailed beast chakra, or else you're both out of the tournament!" He waited a few moments, but as he feared, neither of them seemed to hear him nor care to stop powering up. "I really don't want to have to give Naruto a free pass after we took it away from him the first time…"

"Hey!"

"…but I will disqualify both of you, and I will use force if I have no other choice!" He waited a few more moments to see if the rebellious genin would respond, but again, they either couldn't hear or didn't care about Genma's warnings.

The jōnin sighed and swung his legs over the ledge, muttering, "Suit yourself." He pushed off and began to fall towards the ground, and that's when the arena descended into chaos.

As one, Fū and Gaara lashed out at Genma. The Waterfall genin ascended into the air and sent a blast of wind from her wings right at the proctor, and he was caught off guard and could not prevent the attack. The wave slammed into him, and he crashed into the wall hard. A moment later, a wave of sand flowed up from the ground and wrapped around him, effectively restraining him to the wall, though that wasn't completely necessary because he had lost consciousness from the impact.

As a few screams began to emanate from the crowd, Fū began to rapidly flash through handseals. Her wings began to beat harder, and a fine haze burst into the air. At the same time, the suspicious ANBU agent held up two fingers and whispered, "Kai (Release)!" With the sound of a hundred shattering glasses, the Shishienjin burst to pieces, and the shimmering haze began to scatter throughout the arena. The ANBU controlling the barrier all looked shocked and hurriedly began to try to reform it, but it did not appear that they were having much success.

"What the heck is going on?" Kiba shouted, rising to his feet. "I thought those two were friends with Naruto? Why are they attacking Genma like that?"

Sakura and Ino looked concerned, and Hinata's hand drew close to her mouth as she looked down at a very confused Naruto in the arena. "Something's really…off," Tenten murmured, her voice beginning to slur as she slumped in her seat. "I feel…so tired…all of the sudden…" Her eyes fluttered shut, and a loud clunk behind her indicated that Chōji had succumbed to the same fate.

"Shit…" Ino hissed, recognizing that the haze was actually some manner of biological spore or powder. "Do any of you have tactical masks?" Despite the urgency in her voice, she too was beginning to droop as the haze began to affect her.

"No…" Sakura said faintly, falling back into her seat, as did Hinata, "We're in civilian clothes…we didn't expect…anything to…happen…" As many of the civilians and lower ranked ninja began to succumb to the sleeping agent, the more experience shinobi were scrambling to find any sort of filter or mask to prevent the same fate.

The traitorous ANBU agent chuckled behind his mask. "Try as you may, none of you would expect an attack from within, would you?" His hands came together as he activated his large scale genjutsu. "You may be able to prevent either the physical or the chakra-based attack, but given the element of surprise and the lack of response time, you can't stop both, and my Nehan Shōja no Jutsu (Temple of Nirvana Technique) is just the thing to get this party started." As his illusion began to spread throughout the arena, more and more ninja began to succumb to the now-two pronged attack on their senses.

The ANBU agent released his hands, took off his mask, and lowered his hood, and Yakushi Kabuto pulled out a radio and hissed, "Ready on your mark…"

…xXx…

**AN:** Please review and stay tuned!

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**Appletank: **My specialty. :P

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	33. (Chūnin Exams 15) Chapter 31

**Disclaimer:** The author does not own _Naruto_, anything related to Kishimoto Masashi's works and ideas, except for characters, plotlines, or ideas invented by the author.

**Rating:** **T **(mild to severe language and some mildly graphic imagery, including in this chapter, no overt sexual references or imagery or graphic death as of the writing of this chapter)

**Last time:** As Fūjin and Shirune came to their senses, they quickly realized they were prisoners to a squad of Hidden Sound ninja, as well as two former residents of the Hidden Leaf Village – the former ANBU chief and patriarch of the Inuzuka clan, Inuzuka Rōga, and his faithful canine Benihime. Rōga and Fūjin exchanged biting barbs back and forth, with the former taunting the helplessness of the T&amp;I ninja, and the latter choosing to strike at the heart of the traitor. The lack of Chizuko alongside them also caused some strife, but the hulking Inuzuka assured them she and Dragon were alright before dropping a cryptic hint about a soon-to-be revealed plan. Meanwhile, Sasuke had dealt with Karin in efficient fashion, and Shikamaru was able to corner Temari with his clan's shadow techniques, but a lack of chakra and motivation led to his surrender. While the eldest Sand sibling proceeded to berate him for this, the three jinchūriki entered the arena for the last match, and Genma explained the power restrictions that would be put into place before the various ANBU agents around the arena erected the Shishienjin (Four Violet Flames Formation) to protect the citizens. However, a rogue black ops ninja proceeded to shatter the barrier before brainwashing both Gaara and Fū, who attacked and incapacitated Genma before releasing a sleeping agent from her wings. The ANBU traitor added a large scale genjutsu on top of that and revealed himself as Yakushi Kabuto before confirming the plan was a go…

…xXx…

Rōga's radio squawked to life once more, and instead of taking the call in private, he pulled out the communication device and set it to the full speaker. Surprisingly, the voice of the Leaf ninja Yakushi Kabuto emanated from it, only recognizable by Fūjin and Shirune because he had been a member of their graduating class. "Ready on your mark…" he hissed, and a number of screams could be heard in the background.

The rogue Inuzuka grinned and looked at his two hostages. "Sounds like the party's about to start," he murmured, looking back at the TV as the two brainwashed bijū began to transform further, massive waves of chakra sending ripples across the arena. He clicked a button on the side of the radio and replied, "Warhound acknowledged, neutralizing prisoners before moving to primary target. Good hunting."

"Prisoners?" the traitorous medic hissed. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing to be worried about," Rōga replied smoothly, giving the two T&amp;I ninja a mocking smirk. "Just a few pups that strayed a little too far from their pack. They won't be an issue for much longer."

"Make sure that they aren't," Kabuto growled before cutting the link.

The former Inuzuka patriarch chuckled and stashed the radio. "I've always hated that impetuous brat…" he muttered before waving to his men, who immediately quit their lounging and stood at alert.

"What do you mean, neutralizing the prisoners?" Shirune asked immediately, the tainted color of his skin advancing further up to his neck and head. "I thought your aim was to keep us around as negotiation bait?"

The massive man pulled a case from behind one of the desks and extracted a few thin objects from it before shutting off the television and turning back to them. "I said nothing of the kind. I said I would keep you around and try to make you see the light, just like your apparent friend the ANBU agent with the dragon mask did back at the old training grounds." He opened his hand, revealing two syringes. "Neutralizing doesn't mean killing you, but it does mean making sure that you won't interfere in our plans." He handed off one of the syringes to a Sound ninja who looked more senior than the rest of them before approaching Fūjin. "We'll have to continue this discussion at a later date. As you heard, we've got places to go and people to see…we've got quite the party planned for today, and we don't need you running off and spoiling the surprise to Ibiki or whoever you report to." He took the cap off the syringe and squirted once to make sure that it was functioning correctly.

The Yamanaka jōnin was not to be deterred, even as the needle drew closer to his neck. "Does that mean you're taking Chizuko as well?" he demanded immediately, trying to wriggle away with minimal success.

Rōga shared a look with the other Sound jōnin. "Young love is truly revolting. Well…you'll just have to see, won't you?" he muttered, right before plunging the needle in and injecting, instantly flooding Fūjin's system with a powerful sleeping agent. He fought to remain conscious, but the medicine was much too powerful and fast-acting to ward off with sheer will. He heard something to his left about being careful not to touch Shirune's skin directly and an exclamation from his friend before the last vestiges of awareness slipped from his mind, his final thought being a silent prayer that Rōga was not trying to deceive him.

**(Chūnin Exams) Chapter 31 – The Invasion Begins! Full-On Bijū Warfare!**

The noise level in the stadium was quickly dropping to near nothing. Because most of the civilian population had turned out for the match, they were ill-prepared for any sort of ninjutsu or genjutsu-powered induced sleep. Also, that portion of the audience accounted for just over half of the individuals in the arena, and as their frantic murmurings muted to nothing, the area grew eerily quiet.

The ninja in the stadium normally would be prepared for such an occasion, and indeed, a number of the more genjutsu-savvy shinobi began to dispel the Temple of Nirvana illusion that had begun to flood their vision with drowsy images of feathers. However, many had no answer to the physical danger presented by the sleeping agent being spread throughout the arena by the wings of a growing Fū. By the time that they had dealt with the illusion, the powder had enough time to proliferate their senses, and so almost all of the ninja began to droop in their seats as well.

The genin friends of Naruto were no exception to this. Sakura had made a token effort to dispel the genjutsu once she realized that there was more than one imminent danger. However, the sleeping agent overcame her long before he had a ghost of a chance, and her head was soon slumped on Ino's shoulder, and the blonde Yamanaka's head was likewise resting on top of hers. Tenten's mouth was wide open as her head rocked back over the back of her seat, and Hinata drooped forward, her face obscured by a curtain of dark violet hair. Bags of chips fell to the ground as they slipped from the limp grip of a drowsy Akimichi, and all that could be heard from Kiba and Akamaru were steady, oddly synchronized snores.

By now, both Fū and Gaara had grown significantly in size, their chakra resonating with the environment to manifest smaller versions of their respective sealed bijū. Of the two, the Waterfall kunoichi was by far the bigger of the two, rapidly growing to an approximation of Chōmei about two-thirds her normal size. Her six wings fluttered rapidly as the possessed genin rose into the sky, continuing to disperse a light cloud of sleeping agent while her lone tail whipped around angrily. On the other hand, the Sand jinchūriki remained mostly compact, though he was nearly twice as tall as he was normally without any chakra or sand augmenting his size. His form remained still, the only sign of movement being the bushy tanuki tail swishing through the air behind him.

Naruto, having immediately gone on the defensive once he saw what his opponents had done to Genma, warily eyed the scene. Luckily, Kurama was of immense help in this situation, as his extra chakra supply was just the ticket in disrupting all but the deadliest of genjutsu, and the bijū cloak surrounding his body was more than enough protection to prevent the sleeping agent from affecting him at all. As Fū rose further into the sky, he took a tentative step back, trying to keep a critical eye on both of his opponents. A moment of mental communication passed, and a flare of chakra brought the total of tails on his cloak to four, both master and servant recognizing that the prior rules of engagement had been thrown out the moment that Genma had hit the wall like a sack of potatoes.

The beetle bijū, as if she had received some manner of signal, suddenly turned and stared down the box where many of the VIPs attending the match were sitting. As many of them were high level ninja, for the most part all were still conscious despite the genjutsu taking hold on the rest of the audience, though some were having difficulty fending off the chemical attack completely.

Shibuki immediately ran to the ledge. "Fū, what the hell do you think you're doing?" he screamed angrily, "This is no way to act in a foreign allied village! Power down immediately!" Of course, being in the possessed state that she was, the holder of Chōmei could not understand the request, but she did appear to halt at the sound of Shibuki's voice, the glowing eye behind the bony helmet gazing at the VIP box before a trace of movement seemed to grab her attention. A second later, Hisen and Tarumi leapt to the side of their village leader, both with concerned looks plastered across their faces.

The Waterfall jōnin looked at the two siblings, and his face gradually fell as he realized what they needed to do. He turned back to the Hokage with a questioning glance, and a simple nod was all that was needed to set the plan into motion. "Do it," Shibuki ordered the two brothers simply, and they both took off wordlessly to the far corners of the arena. All three Waterfall ninja began to flash through a long series of hand seals, presumably for some kind of sealing technique.

The massive form of the insect bijū halted and began to turn around, looking at each of the three in turn before a scream of pain burst from her. The Waterfall ninja jolted in surprise momentarily but quickly resumed their sealing technique, knowing that this was a potential side effect but that it would be for the greater good in the end.

However, what they didn't expect was that Fū would begin to gather chakra into her maw, globs of white and black and a shining substance not dissimilar to the dust still floating throughout the arena. "Uh oh…" Minato muttered, his voice muffled by the mask he had thrown over his facial orifices. "That's not good…Kushina, we may need some help here…"

"Already on it, dear," she replied, moving to Shibuki's side. Her chakra exploded around her as nine ethereal tails began to cut the air behind her, her hair separating slightly to start off each appendage. The former Whirlpool resident braced her back leg and shoved both hands forward in a cupped motion. "Naruto!" she shouted down to her son, who perked up at the sound of his name. "Attack on my mark!"

The blond looked somewhat surprised, but once he saw Shibuki's nod after a moment of hesitation, he moved to action as well. He began to bound towards the wall, intending to make his way towards his mother, but a flash of movement caught his attention out of the corner of his eye, and he was forced to veer back into the center of the arena to avoid the blasting wave of sand that would have taken his head off had he remained on that course. "Uh, Mom…I'm a little busy here!" he shouted frantically as he began to dodge a number of buzzing snakes of sand that flew at and around him.

Kushina hissed in annoyance and focused her energy on the task at hand, as the Bijūdama (Tailed Beast Ball) being formed by the possessed Fū was nearly complete. "Everyone, brace for impact," she muttered to the mostly conscious leader box. "I can stop this, but it will still give everyone a jolt." After noting nearly everyone nodding in agreement, with the notable exception of Rasa who was preoccupied with his son's behavior and interference with Naruto, her red slit eyes turned back to the massive insect.

With a horrendous roar, the chakra orb, nearly five meters in diameter, blasted from Chōmei's maw. Kushina gritted her teeth and hissed, "Fūton: Tatsumaki Bakutoppa (Wind Style: Tornado Explosive Breakthrough)!" right before an equally massive blast of wind exploded from her cupped hands. The occupants of the box shielded their faces as wind violently whipped around them, not even noting that the sleeping dust was swept away as a beneficial side effect of the technique.

Kushina's wind blast impacted the Tailed Beast Ball, and for a moment, it appeared like the latter had the upper hand, as it began to chew through the ethereal wave like it was nothing. However, the elder Kyūbi jinchūriki wasn't to be deterred, as she gritted her teeth and snapped to Shibuki, "Hurry up with that sealing technique!" before her chakra cloak darkened to a deep red, all of her features obscured except for glowing openings where her eyes and mouth were. With a grunt, she expelled a brand new wave of chakra into her technique, halting the advance of the demon chakra sphere and instead pushing it back towards Fū.

The possessed genin roared in anger, but the renewed concentration of the Waterfall ninja on their sealing technique seemed to put a damper on her ability to charge the Tailed Beast Ball. As her screams echoed throughout the arena, she was powerless to do anything but watch as Kushina's wind blast overpowered the chakra ball and sent it flying harmlessly off into the distance, dissipating on the trajectory until it was nothing.

Shibuki and Fū's brothers finished their string of seals, and the leader shouted, "Are you ready?"

Hisen and Tarumi both nodded, separating their hands and pointing them towards their sister. "Ready!" both shouted in unison.

"Let's do it then! Fūinjutsu – Kabutokaburi (Sealing Technique – Helmet Wearing)!" Shibuki shouted.

His voice was echoed by Hisen, but as Tarumi tried to activate his portion of the seal, a foot impacted with his cheek and sent him flying into the crowd of sleeping spectators. Despite being disoriented, he did his best to avoid too many injuries, noting with a minor amount of humor that even the impact of his body on some of the arms, heads, and chests of the ninja didn't seem to wake them from their double drowsy state. He also didn't have much time to react before engaging in full hand-to-hand combat, and once he gained a moment to breathe, he did a double take. "Hold on…" he said in growing surprise, doing his best to block the chakra-coated knife hands of his aggressor. "Aren't you…?" 

Yakushi Kabuto only grinned in amusement as he continued to slice aggressively towards Tarumi's vital areas, with only the thick bracers demonstrated in his fight with Temari proving to be the things keeping him alive. "I'd worry less about who I am and more about what I'm going to do to you and your sister the moment you drop your guard," Kabuto replied glibly.

Tarumi scowled and began to fight back with a renewed energy. "You won't get a finger on my sister if I have anything to say about it," he growled.

As the fight between those two began to heat up, the sealing technique was completely forgotten, and Chōmei began to roar with her recovered freedom. Flapping her insect wings, she began to rise into the sky and make her way from the arena and into the Hidden Leaf Village proper. "That's not good…" Shibuki muttered, "Even if she doesn't mean any harm, it's going to be a lot harder to get her under control if she's mobile like that."

Kushina breathed and relaxed her chakra such that she no longer held the Version 2 cloak, though a protective haze still surrounded her. "I can help you with the sealing if you quickly run me through what it entails," she offered, and after only a moment of hesitation, the Waterfall jōnin acquiesced.

"That's fine, but we'll need a third," he replied. His eyes naturally floated over to Hisen, but as he had somewhat expected, the genin was already on his way to help his brother against Kabuto.

The redhead nodded. "As long as shadow clones don't mess with the inherent workings of the seal, we should be fine," she replied, taking a precious moment to look down at her son just as an abnormally large wave of sand sent him flying into a wall. Ignoring her maternal instinct to jump down and assist him, she instead watched in surprise as the possessed Gaara suddenly took the opportunity to leave the fight, leaping to the outer wall of the arena in one magnificent bound and disappearing over the edge.

"Gaara!" Rasa roared in a mix of horror and despair. His head jerked back wildly to look at Minato, and a moment of understanding passed between them before the Sand leader clenched his fist and jumped on a newly formed cloud of sand, taking off after his son.

Kushina turned her attention back to the sky, where Chōmei's massive form was still visible over the village, continuing to disperse sleeping powder over the populace. "What do I need to know about this sealing technique?" she asked Shibuki, not even taking the time to look at him.

The Waterfall jōnin paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. "I assume you saw the seals we performed?" he asked rhetorically, receiving the expected nod in response. "Good. The only important aspects of the seal in terms of being able to use it on a bijū or jinchūriki are that it is a seven-pronged seal, and that it has an element of forced hypnosis to ease along the process."

Kushina raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that slightly overkill?" she asked, a small amount of worry creeping into her tone. "Seven-pronged seals are notoriously finicky, and using a sealing technique to put the jinchūriki to sleep is dangerous for all kinds of reasons."

"Well, if you have a better idea, I would love to hear it!" Shibuki's voice was beginning to grow irate, especially as Fū's wings/tails began to crash into some of the taller buildings in the village.

The redhead smirked despite the situation. "I think I might, but we need Lord Jiraiya's help since it's his technique we'd be using." She turned around, intending to slap the old man awake from his feigned sleep. "Alright, you old pervert, it's time to actually help…us…out…" Her voice trailed off and her eyes widened as she tried to comprehend the scene before her.

"Yes, let's see what my old teammate has to say about that," Orochimaru purred, his eyes trailing down to where Jiraiya's eyes were glaring at him from a few feet away. The toad sage was now completely conscious, both physically and in terms of the vipers wrapped around his arms, fangs dripping with venom bared at his throat. Meanwhile, the Leaf rogue had his signature sword Kusanagi held at the throat of Minato with one hand, while the other painfully bent the Hokage's right shoulder backwards. "Tell us what you think, old friend."

"I think you've got some massive balls for sticking around here for as long as you have," Jiraiya gritted out, trying to not move much in fear of the snakes taking a chunk out of his throat and life. "I think you've also got a lot of gall trying to ambush a box full of foreign leaders and Hidden Leaf officials, during the finals of the Chūnin Exams when the entire village is present in the audience…with nothing but yourself and the traitorous child of Yakushi Kentarō to fight all of us. Didn't old man Sarutobi teach you better than that?"

The snake charmer sneered, jerking Minato's arm for good measure and eliciting the desired wince. "But of course he did. It's the main reason why I've been able to come and go as freely as I have over the past few weeks." His eyes drifted to the back of his captive's head. "Maybe you just weren't cut out to be the leader of this village…not that I'm bitter, of course. Freeing myself from the confines of the bleeding hearts that live here opened all manners of avenues of research." His mouth twisted into a nasty sneer. "Would you like me to show you?"

"I don't think that'll be necessary," Minato interjected. "Kushina, sensei, can I rely on you to take care of things here?" He waited for them to nod hesitantly and gave both a reassuring smile. "I'll deal with Orochimaru elsewhere," he added before the two of them disappeared into thin air, the lasting image of the rogue's sneer imprinting on the minds of everyone present.

The redhead mother exhaled a breath she didn't know she had been holding and in the blink of an eye decapitated the two snakes that had been holding Jiraiya 'hostage.' At the same moment, Naruto bounded into the booth, shrugging sand from various parts of his person. Immediately, Kushina went over to him and embraced him tightly. "Are you okay?" she asked quickly, pulling back enough to hold him at arms length and inspect the damage done by the possessed Gaara.

"Yeah, I'm fine, but neither Gaara nor Fū are…but I guess you know that, don't you," he replied, looking off into the distance where the form of Chōmei was beginning to do some serious damage to the structures in the village. "That was Orochimaru up here, wasn't it?" Looking to Jiraiya and receiving a nod from the family teacher, he turned back to his mother. "Is Dad going to be okay? Do we need to help him?"

Kushina gave him the most reassuring smile that she could, but it came off as more of a grimace. "He's your dad," she said softly. "He's the Hokage for a reason. I'm sure he'll be okay." She waited until Naruto's face seemed relatively appeased for the moment before continuing. "We have bigger issues to tackle right now. Jiraiya, Shibuki, and I will need some help restraining Fū enough for us to seal away the Seven Tails' chakra. Could you go and see if any of your friends are awake?"

"Yeah, I can do that," he responded instantly, "Though I think there's only a chance of one being unaffected by this sleeping powder."

"One's better than none," his mother replied. "We're going to head on ahead and try to get her under control. Once you get some of your friends together, hurry to our location, okay?"

The blond nodded, saluted to his father's teacher, and jumped back over the railing into the arena. Kushina's attention, as he watched him bound lithely through the stands, was drawn to the fight between Kabuto and Fū's siblings. She wasn't sure whether to be surprised or not at the fact that the traitorous genin seemed to be keeping up with two, but given the facts surrounding his association with Orochimaru, she wasn't sure what to believe anymore. She turned to Shibuki and Jiraiya and asked, "Are you ready?" At the tense nods from both, she returned their confirmation, and the three of them took off.

…xXx…

Naruto quickly leapt across numerous seating sections until he reached the area where he had known his non-competitor friends to be sitting. As he suspected, they all seemed to be knocked out quite soundly, but he diligently checked each and every one of them until he got to Shino. "I don't suppose I need to check with you to see if you're awake, right?" he asked slowly, still unsure if his suspicions had been correct.

It was a tense few seconds of silence, but soon enough the blond let out a sigh of relief as the hooded figure of his stoic friend turned towards him. "It would appear that you're correct," Shino noted simply. "Why, you may ask? I assume that you used your knowledge of my insects, more specifically their capability to disrupt my chakra in a way not dissimilar to the Nine Tails and to filter out any foreign poisons from my body, to your advantage and came to me first."

Naruto, of course, hadn't thought that at all past making the insect connection between the two individuals, but he wasn't going to say that to the face of his analytical friend, so he plastered a somewhat fake smile on his face and happily replied, "Well duh, who wouldn't come to that conclusion?" He turned away quick and shook his head in minor disbelief before pointing down to the competitors' box. "Lemme check on everyone who was fighting today and see if any of them are conscious, then we can go after Mom, okay?" Upon Shino's nod, the two of them quickly leapt down the arena wall and across the battleground to where Sasuke and the others had been, last time he had seen them.

As they climbed in through the viewing window, they were mildly surprised to see one person standing in there, and she immediately put her hands up in defense when she saw the two Leaf genin enter. "Hold on!" Karin exclaimed loudly, backing up a few steps and bumping into the wall. She swore loudly and rubbed the back of her head. "Shit, that hurt…"

"What are you doing here?" Naruto asked cautiously, both he and Shino extremely on edge at finding a foreign ninja that could resist both the physical and chakra-based induced sleep. "How'd you stay awake this entire time?" A shivering to his right let him know that Shino's insects were reacting to something about her as they began to slide out of his sleeves in a dark cloud.

Obviously, the girl with the odd hairstyle noticed this as well and recoiled in fright. "No, no, no, wait! Don't send the bugs after me!" she hissed loudly, waving her hands anxiously. "I've always been highly immune to outside influences! I've got a special type of chakra inside of me."

Naruto's eyes narrowed, and inside, Kurama growled angrily. "What exactly do you mean by, 'special type of chakra?'" he questioned in a low tone.

Now it was Karin's turn to look confused. "You mean you don't know? I thought your last name was Uzumaki?" When his face fell into a blank stare, she pressed him further. "Does the red hair not make it painfully obvious?"

When it still didn't get across, Shino laid it out for him. "Naruto, she's an Uzumaki. The resemblance to your mother is quite striking, actually."

The blond looked at his friend and back at the redhead, and after a few seconds, the lightbulb finally clicked on as Karin threw her hands up in exasperation. "Hold on, you're an Uzumaki?" he asked dumbly. "There's still some of us left outside of the village?"

"Uh, YEAH!" the redhead snarled in annoyance. "When Whirlpool went under, our clan scattered to the four winds. I wouldn't be surprised if all of the villages had remnants of our people in them." Ignoring the dumbfounded look on Naruto's face, she continued, "But we can talk about our lineage later, we have bigger problems to deal with. That's why you're here, right?"

The blond shook his head clear of those odd revelations, resolving to investigate them later when there were two rogue jinchūriki running free throughout the village. "Yeah, we need some help. You think you could back up my mom with us while she and the pervy sage try to get Fū back under control?"

She nodded almost immediately. "I hold no deep loyalty to your village or anything, but I'm also a fan of not getting trampled or sliced to bits by an errant attack."

Meanwhile, Shino had been examining the others passed out around the viewing deck to confirm that they were all out cold. "I was hoping that at least Shikamaru would be awake and just faking sleep," the bug wielder grunted, "but it appears that even this was too much for him." In a very uncharacteristic move, he lightly kicked at the foot of the knocked out Nara, receiving only a slightly deeper snore in return for his efforts. "Something else – the two Sound ninja are gone. Is that worth worrying about?"

Naruto and Karin looked mildly surprised by that and looked around, noting that he was indeed right. Obviously, the other two jinchūriki were no longer present in the stadium, and Zaku had never been there after his match because of the pummeling he had received. However, Dosu was not there any more, and he had not been sent off for medical treatment. Neji, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Lee (who had returned from the infirmary with a heavy cast on his leg), and Temari were all slouched over, emitting snores of varying levels of loudness. "That's interesting…" the blond said slowly as he and the rest of the group walked to the window. "Not much we can do about it now, though."

"Hold on…" Karin held up a hand, straining to hear something. "That might be them. I hear someone coming up the staircase." Both of the other teenagers turned, and indeed they could hear multiple sets of footsteps growing louder as at least two people made their way to the top.

Thinking quickly, Shino extracted a shuriken and chucked it at the light switch, knocking out all of the light in the observation deck. "Scatter," the bug user hissed, leaping to the edge of the box and falling over the side such that he could stick to the wall using his chakra and listen in on any potential conversations. Quickly exchanging a look with each other, the two Uzumaki followed him out, Karin choosing to create two footholds with kunai and Naruto situating himself in a low crouch to watch the ledge in case someone came out.

In the distance, the three could hear the clashes between Kabuto and Fū's brothers, as well as the prominent roars of a possessed Chōmei, but despite that, the voices of the unknown party in the box could still be clearly heard from their position. "Zaku, you said you saw those three come in here…" the first voice muttered irritably in a low growling tone.

"They were!" a voice that clearly belonged to the psychotic sound wave ninja whined. "I saw the Hokage's brat go to check on his friends, and then he and the bug lover pranced across the stadium and came in here, which is when I came and got you."

A few heavy clunks indicated the presence of Dosu, who appeared to be doing exactly what Shino had done only moments before. "All of them seem to be out cold," he muttered in his rattling tone. "It seems like Orochimaru and Kabuto's plan worked out well."

"Should we kill them to prevent problems down the road?" Zaku asked, sounding entirely too eager to go through with it. Naruto's eyes widened, and he started to make a move towards the window, but Shino's arm and a prompt reply from the apparent leader of the Sound trio.

"No, I'm not in the mood to murder small fry when there are bigger fish to catch." To the surprise of the hidden genin, a radio crackled to life, interrupting the third man's speech with a burst of static. "Let's see if our friends have any idea where the rats ran off to." Another pause occurred as he likely fiddled with the radio to receive whatever message was being sent. "Well, do you have anything for us…oh really…well that's interesting…yes, yes, go ahead and set up, we'll be there in a moment…no, there's no need for that, the people that we would need to be worried about are preoccupied with the Waterfall and Sand jinchūriki thanks to that hysteria seal that Orochimaru and Kabuto infected them with…yes, go on our signal, out." Another bit of shuffling commenced as the radio was likely stowed away in the robes of its owner. "Well, that was an enlightening chat."

"What'd they say?" Zaku asked eagerly. "I'm ready to blast those fools to kingdom come. Just tell me where!"

The leader chuckled slightly. "Normally, I'd tell you exactly where to stick those infernal hands of yours because I can't stand being around you for more than ten minutes at a time…" An indignant huff from Zaku could be heard, "…but for once you may have a decent use here."

The lack of an immediate response was indicative of surprise from both Zaku and Dosu, but the former piped up quickly enough. "What are you talking about? You know where they're at?"

"Well, of course I do," the leader drawled. "They've been listening to us since we came up here." There was some shuffling, and the reason was clear a moment later. "Just blast the wall there, and you'll find them."

"Shit!" Naruto hissed, and the three genin immediately pushed off from the wall into the wide open space of the arena. Not a second later, their hiding spot exploded in a blast of slicing sound, and they instinctively put their hands up to block the fragments of cement suddenly heading their way.

As they landed in the arena, Naruto's senses caught a glimpse of movement in the stands above, but he was unable to do anything before a glistening, fuschia barrier rose into the air in a dome, encompassing the entire field and preventing any escape. "Shit, that's a Shishienjin (Four Violet Flames Formation)…" he muttered. "We're trapped in here with them unless we can figure out a way to take out one of the four anchor men." At four equidistant spots on the observer deck wall, they could see ninja only slightly older than them dressed in Sound garb, but they were unable to see much else because their attention quickly turned to the three Sound ninja that had tracked them to the viewing deck.

Obviously, they could easily identify Zaku and Dosu, the mummy-like genin hunched over in his normal pose and the gore-happy psycho floating in the air using this newly revealed levitation powers. However, the third was a complete mystery. He was taller than both of his companions, with piercing green eyes not dissimilar to the color of Fū's hair. His pale blond hair was mostly loose, but a couple of strands were tied up here and then, and his eyebrows were oddly sculpted. His clothing was similar to that of other Sound ninja that the genin had seen, but his was of a looser variety, as if he had the freedom to shuck it aside if necessary. "I trust you are well acquainted with my two companions here, but I don't believe we've had the pleasure of being introduced," he said smoothly, as if this was some sort of business meeting. "Kaguya Kimimaro at your service." He bent over in an elaborate bow, almost mocking in how grandiose it appeared.

That name perked the ears of Naruto, as he remembered it from a previous conversation. "Hold on…Kaguya…I think I remember Zabuza mentioning you when we ran across him during a mission. Didn't your clan get wiped out by Hidden Mist during the revolts a decade ago?"

Kimimaro looked mildly surprised, but nevertheless he clapped his hands in appreciation. "I guess I should have expected as much from the son of a sitting Hokage, but from what I hear, you've got your moments of stupidity to counteract the brief flashes of brilliance." He paused for a moment to process another part of Naruto's statement. "Zabuza…you wouldn't happen to be referring to Momochi Zabuza, would you?" The stony face he received in lieu of a response basically confirmed that. "Now that's a name I haven't heard in a while. Last time his name was uttered in our village, it was when he tried to save that lover of his, Terumī Mei, from being executed in the purges. Tried to stand up to Hōzuki Gengetsu, too. Surprised the bastard survived that and is brave enough to keep showing his face while the standing Mizukage still lives."

"You could say the same thing, given the deadly reputation of your clan's kekkei genkai," Shino retorted softly, and Kimimaro couldn't help but smirk and shrug in aloof confirmation. "So what's a Mist renegade doing with Hidden Sound and Orochimaru?" the Aburame pushed further, gently ruffling his sleeves to free his hands. To his side, Karin grabbed two kunai to arm herself as well. "That seems like an awfully odd pairing to occur without a good reason."

Kimimaro's mouth twisted into a dark smile. "I must say, you are the persistent one, but to mollify your curiosity, I'll answer one of your questions. My body is special amongst those of my dead clansmen. Yes, I do have the special Kaguya kekkei genkai, but prolonged use like is required of me by Lord Orochimaru is not conducive to the well being of my health. However, thanks to Kabuto and some fresh medical eyes on my situation, I have a new outlook on life."

"Good, I wouldn't want you keeling over before I had the chance to clock you for invading my village," Naruto snarled, his chakra shroud igniting once more to a three-tailed form.

Kimimaro chuckled. "My, my, you certainly are just as headstrong as I have heard. Zaku, Dosu, I'll let you two handle the small fry. I want to take care of the jinchūriki myself."

"You sound pretty confident in your abilities…" the blond retorted immediately. "What makes you think you can take me on?"

The former Mist ninja shrugged, and it initially appeared like he was brushing off the blond's comments. However, as the sleeves of his robe fell down, Kimimaro muttered, "Apparently Zabuza wasn't completely thorough in his brief explanation of the Kaguya clan. You do know of our kekkei genkai and how it isn't very common amongst my people, but it is special amongst the most elite of clans, rivaling the power of the Hyūga and Uchiha as a gift granted by the mother of ninja herself." As the skin began to rupture at one of his shoulder blades, he added, "I just hope your silly little chakra cloak is strong enough to give me some good exercise." Yanking the exposed bone from the opening, he brandished the calcified spear as a sword in front of him. "After all, I did just recover from an extremely nasty illness, and I'm in dire need of a good workout…"

…xXx…

Minato and Orochimaru appeared in a field outside of the village, and immediately the blond Hokage leapt away from his former competition. "So do you want to explain what you're doing here and why you've stuck around for over a month, or are you going to be difficult?" he asked lightly.

The snake master smirked, putting his hands on his hips in an overly casual manner. "I'm not interested in getting into a scuffle with you. In fact, that's the last thing I wish to do." He shrugged and looked to the sky. "I'm just here to have a little fun with you before the real party starts."

That piqued Minato's interest. "What exactly do you mean by 'party?' Wasn't that stunt in the arena more than enough excitement to get back at the village for evicting you? I'd love to know how you managed to warp the seals of two jinchūriki with well-formed seals."

Orochimaru chuckled. "Oh, no no no. This has nothing to do with the village. I've long since gotten over the sting of rejection from my former master." His snakelike tongue slithered out of his mouth, and his grin grew especially eerie. "But I don't need to explain myself in that regard. You did help to rid him from the world, after all. He's the reason the village is intact and your son a village hero…" His voice trailed off as he felt a blade pushing against his throat, but the grin never left his face.

"Don't you dare speak of the Third Hokage as if you knew what he sacrificed for the greater good of the village." Minato's voice was as icy as a cool winter breeze, and he kept his hand steady at the throat of his opponent. "He was twice the man you'll ever be."

"Oh, dear…it seems I've hit a nerve…" the legendary ninja hissed. "It almost seems like you feel…oh, I don't know…_guilty_ about the fact that he died and you didn't…" The captive was suddenly no longer captive, as his body dissolved into a mass of snakes, forcing Minato to back away in undisguised disgust. Orochimaru reappeared a few yards away, flashing through a series of hand seals. "Still…I'm not here to discuss morals with you, as stimulating of a conversation as it may be." He finished and slammed his hands to the ground, and the Hokage watched tentatively as a coffin erupted from the ground. "I trust you know what this is?"

Unfortunately, the last of the Namikaze was all too aware of what Orochimaru was doing, but he chose not to succumb to the taunt of a madman and just watched tensely as the wooden tomb stood erect, the only identifying feature being the kanji for 'two' on the front.

"You seem so silent…" the long haired traitor purred, just as the front of the coffin cracked away and fell to the ground with a massive bang. "All I want to do is to have some fun with you, but you seem to have such a negative attitude about the whole situation…" A figure stepped slowly from the coffin, and the light of midday shone upon the decaying features of the Second Hokage, Senji Tobirama. "Maybe a personal introduction to one of your idols will change your mind…"

Dust crumbled from the deceased leader's neck as his head turned to look at the man who had disturbed his eternal slumber. "I should come back there and snap your neck for reviving me with my own technique…" he growled angrily. "I always had a suspicion about you ever since Sarutobi began teaching you, but I never thought it would go as far as betraying your own village and then attacking it in a fit of misguided revenge." As Orochimaru shrugged, seemingly unfazed by the attack on his soiled character, the water master turned back to his soon-to-be opponent. "And you…you're the Fourth?" Upon seeing the nod of confirmation, his soiled features broke out into a grin. "This should be fun, circumstances not withstanding…from what I've seen, you're not unlike myself at your age, what with the love of teleportation and dabbling into new techniques."

Minato really should have been surprised, but after the way this day had turned south, all he could do was grin grimly and settle into a fighting stance. "I certainly hope to do you proud, Lord Second, despite the unfortunate way we had to be introduced."

"I'm sure you will, lad," the white haired legend said softly, "I'm sure you will…" His voice trailed off as Orochimaru inserted what appeared to be a control seal into the back of his head, and dust began to rise from his body as it stitched back together. "If we're going to be forced into a scuffle…let's try to at least have a good time with it, eh?" Tobirama added as he cracked his neck…and then disappeared from sight…

**AN:** Please constructively review and stay tuned!

**Review Responses:**

** : **I have numerous instances in this story where Minato is not holding a kunai while performing Hiraishin.


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